4C] 


EXPOSITIONS   OF  HOLY  SCRIPTURE 


EXPOSITIONS  OF 
HOLY  SCRIPTURE 

ALEXANDER  KlACLAREN,  D.  D.,  Litt.  D. 


EPHESIANS 


/ 


HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 


PAGK 

SviNTS  AND  Faithful  (Eph.  i.  1)  .             .             .  .           1 

•  All  Spiritual  Blessings  '  (Eph.  i.  3)     ,             •  •            8 

•According  To'— L  (Eph.  i.'5, 7)  .            ,            ,  ,          18 

•  According  To  '—II.  (Eph.  i.  7)  .  •  .  .  26 
God's  Inheritance  and  Ours  (Eph.  i.  11,  14)  .  ,85 
The  Earnest  and  the  Inheritance  (Eph.  i.  14)  ,  43 
The  Hope  of  the  Calling  (Eph.  i.  18)  .  .  .  52 
God's  Inheritance  in  the  Saints  (Eph.  i.*18)  .  .  62 
The  Measure  of  Immeasurable  Power  (Eph.  i.  19,  20)  72 
The  Resurrection  of  Dead  Souls  (Eph.  ii.  4,  5)  ,  81 
♦The  Riches  of  Grace'  (Eph.'ii.  7)  .  .  .91 
Salvation  :  Grace  :  Faith  (Eph.  ii.  8,  R.V.)  ,  ,  98 
God's  Workmanship  and  our  Works  (Eph.  ii.  10)  .  108 
The  Chief  Corner-Stone  (Eph.  ii.  20.  R.V.)         .  .         118 


Ti         EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS 

'The  Whole  Family'  (Eph.  iii.  15)  .  , 

Stbenqthened  with  Might  (Epli.  iii.  10)  • 

The  Indwelling  Christ  (Eph.  iii.  17)       .  • 

Love  Unknowable  and  K^owN  (Eph.  iii;  18,  19), 
The  Paradox  of  Love's  Measure  (Eph.  iii.  18) . 
The  Climax  of  all  Prayer  (Eph.  iii.  19)  . 

Measureless  Power  and  Endless  Glory  (Eph. -iii.  20, 
The  Calling  and  the  Kingdom  (Eph.  iv.  1 ;  Rev.  iii.  4) 
•The  Threefold  Unity'  (Eph.  iv.  5)        ,  • 

•  The  Measure  of  Grace  '  (Eph.  iv.  7,  R.V.)  , 
The  Goal  of  Progress  (Eph.  iv.  13,  R.V.)  . 

Christ  our  Lesson  and  our  Teacher  (Eph.  iv.  20,  21) 
A  Dark  Picture  and  a  Bright  Hope  (Eph.  iv.  22) 
The  New  Man  (Eph  iv.  24)  .  .  . 

Grieving  the  Spirit  (Eph,  iv.  30)  •  • 

God's  Imitators  (Eph.  v.  1)  .  •  • 

What  Children  of  Light  should  be  (Eph.  v.  8) 
The  Fruit  of  the  Light  (Eph.  v.  9,  R.V.)  . 


PAGK 

128 


132 
142 
151 
162 

171 

21)  180 
194 
203 
207 
216 
224 
233 
247 
262 
270 
277 
286 


CONTENTS 

Pleasing  Christ  (Eph,  v.  10)         .  •  * 

Unfruitful  Works  of  Darkness  (Eph.  v.  11)  . 
Paul's  Reasons  for  Temperance  (Eph.  v.  11-21) 
Sleepers  at  Noonday  (Eph.  v.  14)  • 

Redeeming  the  Time  (Eph.  v.  15,  16)  • 
'The  Panoply  of  God'  (Eph.  vi.  13)  • 
•The  Girdle  of  Truth'  (Eph.  vi.  14,  R.V.) 

*  The  Breastplate  of  Righteousness  '  (Eph.  v 
A  Soldier's  Shoes  (Eph.  vi.  15)    .  . 

The  Shield  of  Faith  (Eph.  vi.  16)  • 

'  The  Helmet  op  Salvation  '  (Eph.  vi.  17) 

•  The  Sword  op  the  Spirit  '  (Eph.  vi.  17) 
Peace,  Love,  and  Faith  (Eph.  vi.  23)      . 

The  Wide  Range  op  God's  Grace  (Eph.  vi.  24) 


1^) 


Vll 

PAOW 

295 


303 
313 
318 
327 
337 
343 
350 
353 
361 
367 
373 
381 
891 


SAINTS  AND  FAITHFUL 

•The  saints  which  are  at  Ephesus  and  the  faithftil  in  Christ  Jesus.'— Eph.  i.  L 

That  is  Paul's  way  of  describing  a  church.  There  were 
plenty  of  very  imperfect  Christians  in  the  community 
at  Ephesus  and  in  the  other  Asiatic  churches  to  which 
this  letter  went.  As  we  know,  there  were  heretics 
amongst  them,  and  many  others  to  whom  the  designa- 
tion of  '  holy  '  seemed  inapplicable.  But  Paul  classes 
them  all  under  one  category,  and  describes  the  whole 
body  of  believing  people  by  these  two  words,  which 
must  always  go  together  if  either  of  them  is  truly 
applied,  '  saints '  and  '  faithful.' 

Now  I  think  that  from  this  simple  designation  we 
may  gather  two  or  three  very  obvious  indeed,  and  very 
familiar  and  old-fashioned,  but  also  very  important, 
thoughts. 

I.  A  Christian  is  a  saint. 

We  are  accustomed  to  confine  the  word  to  peisons 
who  tower  above  their  brethren  in  holiness  and  mani- 
fest godliness  and  devoutness.  The  New  Testament 
never  does  anything  like  that.  Some  people  fancy  that 
nobody  can  be  a  saint  unless  he  wears  a  special  uniform 
of  certain  conventional  sanctities.  The  New  Testament 
does  not  take  that  point  of  view  at  all,  but  regards  all 
true  believers  in  Jesus  Christ  as  being,  therein  and 
thereby,  saints. 

Now,  what  does  it  mean  by  that?  The  word  at 
bottom  simply  signifies  separation.    Whatever  is  told 

A 


2        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  l 

off  from  a  mass  for  a  specific  purpose  would  be  called, 
if  it  were  a  thing,  '  holy.'  But  there  is  one  special  kind 
of  separation  which  makes  a  person  a  saint,  and  that 
is  separation  to  God,  for  His  uses,  in  obedience  to  His 
commandment,  that  He  may  employ  the  man  as  He 
will.  So  in  the  Old  Testament  the  designation  *  holy ' 
was  applied  quite  as  much  to  the  high  priest's  mitre  or 
to  the  sacrificial  vessels  of  the  Temple  as  it  was  to  the 
people  who  used  them.  It  did  not  imply  originally, 
and  in  the  first  place,  moral  qualities  at  all,  but  simply 
that  this  person  or  that  thing  belonged  to  God.  But 
then  you  cannot  belong  to  God  unless  you  are  like 
Him,  There  can  be  no  consecration  to  God  except  the 
heart  is  being  purified.  So  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
holiness,  as  moral  purity  and  cleanness  from  sin, 
necessarily  comes  from  the  original  meaning,  separa- 
tion and  devotion  to  the  service  of  God. 

Thus  we  get  the  whole  significance  of  Christian 
holiness.  We  are  to  belong  to  God,  and  to  know  that 
we  do  belong  to  Him.  We  are  to  be  separated  from 
the  mass  of  people  and  things  that  have  no  conscious- 
ness of  ownership  and  do  not  yield  themselves  up  to 
Him  for  His  use.  But  we  cannot  belong  to  Him,  and 
be  devoted  to  His  service,  unless  we  are  being  made  day 
by  day  pure  in  heart,  and  like  Him  to  whom  we  say  that 
we  belong.  A  human  being  can  only  be  God's  by  the 
surrender  of  heart  and  will,  and  through  the  continual 
appropriation  into  his  own  character  and  life,  of 
righteousness  and  purity  like  that  which  belongs  to 
God.  Holiness  is  God's  stamp  upon  a  man,  His  '  mark,' 
by  which  He  sa>s — This  man  belongs  to  Me.  As  you 
write  your  name  in  a  book,  so  God  writes  His  name  on 
His  property,  and  the  name  that  He  writes  is  the 
likeness  of  His  own  character. 


v.l]  SAINTS  AND  FAITHFUL  8 

Note,  again,  that  in  God's  church  there  is  no  aris- 
tocracy of  sanctity,  nor  does  the  name  of  saint  belong 
only  to  those  who  live  high  above  the  ordinary  tumults 
of  life  and  the  secularities  of  daily  duty.  You  may  be 
as  true  a  saint  in  a  factory — ay !  and  a  far  truer  one — 
than  in  a  hermitage.  You  do  not  need  to  cultivate  a 
medigeval  or  Roman  Catholic  type  of  ascetic  piety  in 
order  to  be  called  saints.  You  do  not  need  to  be 
amongst  the  select  few  to  whom  it  is  given  here  upon 
earth,  but  not  given  without  their  own  effort,  to  rise 
to  the  highest  summits  of  holy  conformity  with  the 
divine  will.  But  down  amongst  all  the  troubles  and 
difficulties  and  engrossing  occupations  of  our  secular 
work,  you  may  be  living  saintly  lives;  for  the  one 
condition  of  being  holy  is  that  we  should  know  whose 
we  are  and  whom  we  serve,  and  we  can  carry  the  con- 
sciousness of  belonging  to  Him  into  every  corner  of  the 
poorest,  most  crowded,  and  most  distracted  life,  recog- 
nising His  presence  and  seeking  to  do  His  will.  The 
saint  is  the  man  who  says,  *  O  Lord,  truly  I  am  Thy 
servant ;  Thou  hast  loosed  my  bonds.'  Because  He  has 
loosed  my  bonds,  the  bonds  that  held  me  to  my  sins, 
He  has  therein  fastened  me  with  far  more  stringent 
bonds  of  love  to  the  sweet  and  free  service  of  His 
redeeming  love.    All  His  children  are  His  saints. 

The  Old  Testament  ritual  had  one  sacrifice  which 
carried  this  truth  in  it.  It  is  the  first  prescribed  in 
the  Book  of  Leviticus,  the  ceremonial  book — namely, 
the  burnt  offering.  Its  especial  meaning  was  this,  that 
the  whole  man  is  to  be  laid  upon  God's^  altar  and  there 
consumed  in  the  fire  of  a  divine  love.  It  began  with 
expiation,  as  all  sacrifices  must,  and  on  the  footing  of 
expiation  there  followed  the  transformation,  by  the 
fire  of  God,  from  gross  earthliness  into  vapour  and 


4        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [oh.  i. 

odour  which  went  up  in  wreaths  of  fragrance  accept- 
able to  God.  So  we  are  to  be  laid  upon  the  divine 
altar.  So,  because  we  have  been  accepted  in  the 
Beloved,  and  have  received  the  atonement  for  our 
sins  through  His  great  sacrifice,  we  are  to  be  con- 
secrated to  His  service  and,  touched  by  the  fire  which 
He  sends  down,  we  are  to  be  changed  into  a  sweet 
odour  acceptable  to  Him  as  were  '  the  saints  which  are 
in  Ephesus.' 

II.  Further,  Christian  men  are  saints  because  they 
are  believers. 

'  The  saints '  and  '  the  faithful '  are  not  two  sets  of 
people,  but  one.  The  Apostle  starts,  as  it  were,  on  the 
surface,  and  goes  down  ;  takes  off  the  uppermost  layer 
and  lets  us  see  what  is  below  it;  begins  with  the 
flowers  or  the  fruit,  and  then  carries  us  to  the  root. 
The  saints  are  saints  because  they  are  first  of  all 
faithful.  '  Faithful '  here,  of  course,  does  not  mean,  as 
it  usually  does  in  our  ordinary  language,  '  true '  and 
'  trusty,' '  reliable '  and  *  keeping  our  word,'  but  it  means 
simply  'believing';  having  faith,  not  in  the  sense  of 
fidelity,  but  in  the  sense  of  trust. 

So,  then,  here  is  Paul's  notion — and  it  is  not  only  Paul's 
notion,  it  is  God's  truth — that  the  only  way  by  which 
a  man  ever  comes  to  realise  that  he  belongs  to  God, 
and  to  yield  himself  in  glad  surrender  to  His  uses,  and 
so  to  become  pure  and  holy  like  Him  whom  He  loves 
and  aspires  to,  is  by  humble  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  If 
you  want  to  talk  in  theological  terminology,  sanctifi- 
cation  follows  upon  faith.  It  is  when  we  believe  and 
trust  in  Jesus  Christ  that  all  the  great  motives  begin 
to  tell  upon  life  and  heart,  which  deliver  us  from  our 
selfishness,  which  bind  us  to  God,  which  make  it  a  joy 
to  do  anything  for  His  service,  which  kindle  in  our 


T.l]  SAINTS  AND  FAITHFUL  S 

hearts  the  flame  of  fructifying  and  consecrating  and 
transforming  love.  Faith,  the  simple  reliance  of  a 
desperate  and  therefore  trusting  heart  upon  Jesus 
Christ  for  all  that  it  needs,  is  the  foundation  of  the 
loftiest  elevation  and  attainment  of  the  Christian 
character.  We  begin  down  there  that  we  may  set  the 
shining  topstone  of  'Holiness  to  the  Lord'  upon  the 
heaven-pointing  summit  of  our  lives. 

Note  how  here  Paul  sets  forth  the  object  of  our  faith 
and  the  blessedness  of  it.  I  do  not  think  I  am  forcing 
too  much  meaning  into  his  words  when  I  ask  you  to 
notice  with  what  distinct  emphasis  and  intentional 
fulness  he  employs  the  double  name  of  our  Lord  here 
to  describe  the  object  upon  which  our  faith  fixes, 
•Faithful  in  Christ  Jesus'  We  must  lay  hold  of  the 
Manhood,  and  we  must  lay  hold  of  the  office.  We 
must  rest  our  soul's  salvation  on  Him  as  our  brother, 
Jesus  who  was  incarnate  in  sinful  flesh  for  us  ;  and  we 
must  also  rest  it  on  Him  as  God's  anointed,  who  came 
in  human  flesh  to  fulfil  the  divine  loving-kindness  and 
purposes,  and  in  that  flesh  to  die.  A  faith  in  a  Jesus 
who  was  not  a  Christ  would  not  sanctify ;  a  faith  in  a 
Christ  who  is  not  Jesus  would  be  impalpable  and 
impotent.  We  must  take  the  two  together,  believing 
and  feeling  that  we  lay  hold  upon  a  loving  Man,  '  bone 
of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh  * ;  and  also  upon  Him 
who  in  His  very  humanity  is  the  Messenger  and  Angel 
of  God's  covenant ;  the  Christ  for  whom  the  way  has 
been  being  prepared  from  the  beginning,  and  who  has 
come  to  fulfil  all  the  purposes  of  the  divine  heart. 

And  notice,  too,  how  there  is  suggested  here  also,  the 
blessedness  of  that  faith,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  faith  in 
Christ.  The  New  Testament  speaks  in  diverse  ways 
about   the  relation   between  the  believing   eoul  an4 


6        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.i. 

Jesus  Christ.  It  sometimes  speaks  of  faith  as  being 
towards  Him,  and  that  suggests  the  going  out  of  a 
hand  that,  as  it  were,  stretches  towards  what  it  would 
lay  hold  of.  It  sometimes  speaks  of  faith  as  being  on 
Him,  which  suggests  the  idea  of  a  building  on  its 
foundation,  or  a  hand  leaning  on  a  support.  And 
it  sometimes  speaks,  as  here,  of  faith  being  '  in  Him,' 
which  suggests  the  folded  wings  of  the  dove  that  has 
found  its  nest,  the  repose  of  faith,  the  quiet  rest  in  the 
Lord,  and  '  waiting  patiently  for  Him.'  Such  trust  so 
directed  is  the  one  condition  of  such  tranquillity.  Then, 
again,  note  a  Christian  is  all  that  he  is  because  he  is 
'in  Christ.'  That  phrase  'in  Him'  is  in  some  sense 
the  keynote  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  If  you 
will  look  over  the  letter,  and  pick  out  all  the  connec- 
tions in  which  the  expression  '  in  Him '  occurs,  I  think 
you  will  be  astonished  to  see  how  rich  and  full  are  its 
uses,  and  how  manifold  the  blessings  of  which  it  is  the 
condition.  But  the  use  which  Paul  makes  of  it  here  is 
just  this— everything  in  our  Christian  life  depends 
upon  our  being  rooted  and  grafted  in  Jesus.  Dear 
brethren,  the  main  weakness,  I  believe,  of  what  is 
called  Evangelical  CJaristianity  has  been  that  it  has  not 
always  kept  true  to  the  proportionate  prominence 
which  the  New  Testament  gives  to  the  two  thoughts, 
•Christ  for  us,'  and  'Christ  in  us.'  For  one  sermon 
that  you  have  heard  which  has  dwelt  earnestly  and 
believingly  on  the  thought  of  the  indwelling  Christ 
and  the  Christian  indwelling  in  Him,  you  have  heard 
a  hundred  about  the  Sacrifice  on  the  Cross  for  sins, 
and  the  great  atonement  that  was  made  by  it.  Those 
of  you,  who  have  listened  to  me  from  Sunday  to  Sunday, 
know  that  I  am  not  to  be  charged  with  minimising  or 
neglecting  that  truth,  but  I  want  to  lay  upon  all  your 


T.l]  SAINTS  AND  FAITHFUL  7 

hearts  this  earnest  conviction,  that  a  gospel  which 
throws  into  enormous  prominence  *  Christ  for  us,'  and 
into  very  small  prominence  '  Christ  in  us,'  is  lame  of 
one  foot,  is  lopsided,  untrue  to  the  symmetry  and 
proportion  of  the  Gospel  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  will  never  avail  for  the  nourishment 
and  maturity  of  Christian  souls.  '  Christ  for  us '  by  all 
means,  and  for  evermore,  but  *  Christ  in  us,'  or  else  He 
will  not  be  ^for  us.' 

HI.  Lastly,  a  Christian  may  be  a  saint,  and  a  believer, 
and  in  Christ  Jesus,  though  he  is  in  Ephesus. 

Many  of  you  know  that  probably  the  words  *in 
Ephesus'  are  no  part  of  the  original  text  of  this  epistle, 
which  was  apparently  a  circular  letter,  in  which  the 
designation  of  the  various  churches  to  which  it  was 
sent  was  left  blank,  to  be  filled  in  with  the  name  of 
each  little  community  to  which  Paul's  messenger  from 
Rome  carried  it.  The  copy  from  which  our  text  was 
taken  had  probably  been  delivered  at  Ephesus ;  and,  at 
any  rate,  one  of  the  copies  would  go  there.  What  was 
Ephesus  ?  Satan's  very  headquarters  and  seat  in  Asia 
Minor,  a  focus  of  idolatry,  superstition,  wealth,  luxury 
springing  from  commerce,  and  moral  corruption. 
•Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians.'  The  books  of 
Ephesus  were  a  synonym  for  magical  books.  Many 
of  us  know  how  rotten  to  the  core  the  society  of  that 
great  city  was.  And  there,  on  the  dunghill,  was  this 
little  garden  of  fragrant  and  flowering  plants.  They 
were  '  saints  in  Christ  Jesus,'  though  they  were  '  saints 
in  Ephesus.' 

Never  mind  about  surroundings.  It  is  possible  for  us 
to  keep  ourselves  in  the  love  of  God,  and  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  His  Son  wherever  we  are,  and  whatever  may 
lie  around  us.     You  and  I  have  too  to  live  i^  a  big, 


8        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESTANS    [ch.i. 

wicked  city,  and  to  work  out  our  religion  in  a  society 
honeycombed  with  corruption,  because  of  commerce 
and  other  influences.  Do  not  let  us  forget  that  these 
people  whom  Paul  called  '  saints '  and  '  faithful '  had  a 
harder  fight  to  wage  than  we  have,  with  less  to  hearten 
and  strengthen  them  in  it.  Only  remember  if  the 
'saints  in  Ephesus'  are  to  be  'in  Christ,' they  need  to 
keep  themselves  very  straight  up.  The  carbonic  acid 
gas  is  heavy  and  goes  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  cave, 
and  if  a  man  will  walk  bolt  upright,  he  will  keep  his 
nostrils  above  it ;  but  if  he  stoops,  he  will  get  down 
into  it.  Walk  straight  up,  with  your  head  erect,  looking 
to  the  Master,  and  your  respiratory  organs  will  be 
above  the  poison.  If  we  are  to  be  in  Christ  when  we 
are  in  Ephesus,  we  need  to  keep  ourselves  separate  and 
faithful,  and  to  keep  ourselves  in  Christ.  If  the  diver 
comes  out  of  the  diving-bell  he  is  drowned.  If  he 
keeps  inside  its  crystal  walls  he  may  be  on  the  bottom 
of  the  ocean,  but  he  is  dry  and  safe.  Keep  in  the 
fortress  by  loyal  faith,  by  humble  realisation  of  His 
presence,  by  continual  effort,  and  'nothing  shall  by 
any  means  harm  you,'  but  'your  lives  shall  be  holy, 
being  hid  with  Christ  in  God.' 


•ALL  SPIRITUAL  BLESSINGS' 

'  Blessed  be  Ood  . . .  who  hath  blessed  us  with  all  Bpiritaal  blessings  in  heaTenly 
places  in  Christ.'— Eph.  L  3. 

It  is  very  characteristic  of  Paul's  impetuous  fervour 
and  exuberant  faith  that  he  begins  this  letter  with 
a  doxology,  and  plunges  at  once  into  the  very  heart  of 
his  theme.  Colder  natures  reach  such  heights  by  slow 
degrees.     He  gains  them  at  a  bound,  or  rather,  he 


y.3]      'ALL  SPIRITUAL  BLESSINGS'         9 

dwells  there  always.  Put  a  pen  into  his  hand,  and  it 
is  like  tapping  a  blast  furnace  ;  and  out  rushes  a  fiery 
stream  at  white  heat.  But  there  is  a  great  deal  more 
than  fervour  in  the  words.  In  the  rush  of  his  thoughts 
there  is  depth  and  method.  We  come  slowly  after,  and 
try  by  analysing  and  meditation  to  recover  some  of 
the  fervour  and  the  fire  of  such  utterances  as  this. 

Notice  that  buoyant,  joyous,  emphatic  reiteration : 
'Blessed,'  'blest,'  'blessings.'  That  is  more  than  the 
fascination  exercised  over  a  man's  mind  by  a  word ;  it 
covers  very  deep  thoughts  and  goes  very  far  into  the 
centre  of  the  Christian  life.  God  blesses  us  by  gifts ;  we 
bless  Him  by  words.  The  aim  of  His  act  of  blessing  is  to 
evoke  in  our  hearts  the  love  that  praises.  We  receive 
first,  and  then,  moved  by  His  mercies,  we  give.  Our 
highest  response  to  His  most  precious  gifts  is  that  we 
shall  'take  the  cup  of  salvation,  and  call  upon  the 
name  of  the  Lord,'  and  in  the  depth  of  thankful  and 
recipient  hearts  shall  say,  '  Blessed  be  God  who  hath 
blessed  us.' 

Now  I  think  that  I  shall  best  bring  out  the  deep 
meaning  of  these  words  if  I  simply  follow  them  as  they 
lie  before  us.  I  do  not  wish  to  say  anything  about 
our  echo  in  blessing  God.  I  wish  to  speak  about  the 
original  sweet  sound,  His  blessing  to  us. 

I.  And  I  note,  first  of  all,  the  character  and  the  ex- 
tent of  these  blessings  which  are  the  constituents  of 
the  Christian  life. 

'All  spiritual  blessings,'  says  the  Apostle.  Now,  I 
am  not  going  to  weary  you  with  mere  exegetical  re- 
marks, but  I  do  want  to  lay  stress  upon  this,  that, 
when  the  Apostle  speaks  about  '  spiritual  blessings,'  he 
does  not  merely  use  that  word  '  spiritual' as  defining 
the  region   in   us   in  which  the  blessings  are  given, 


10      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [oh.i. 

though  that  is  also  implied;  but  rather  as  pointing 
to  the  medium  by  which  they  are  conferred.  That  is 
to  say,  he  calls  them  '  spiritual,'  not  because  they  are, 
unlike  material  and  outward  blessings,  gifts  for  the 
inner  man,  the  true  self,  but  because  they  are  imparted 
to  the  waiting  spirit  by  that  Divine  Spirit  who  com- 
municates to  men  all  the  most  precious  things  of  God. 
They  are  'spiritual'  because  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
medium  of  communication  by  which  they  reach  men's 
spirits. 

And  I  may  just  pause  for  one  moment — and  it  shall 
only  be  for  a  moment — to  point  out  to  you  how  in- 
woven into  the  very  texture  of  the  writer's  thoughts, 
and  all  the  more  emphatic  because  quite  incidental, 
and  needing  to  be  looked  for  to  be  found,  is  here  the 
evidence  of  his  believing  that  the  name  of  God  was 
God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  For  it  is  the 
Father  who  is  the  Giver,  the  Son  who  is  the  Reservoir, 
the  Spirit  who  is  the  Communicator,  of  these  spiritual 
gifts.  And  I  do  not  think  that  any  man  could  have 
written  these  words  of  my  text,  the  main  purpose  of 
which  is  altogether  different  to  setting  forth  the  mys- 
tery of  the  divine  nature,  unless  he  had  believed  in 
God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost. 

But,  apart  altogether  from  that,  let  me  remind  you 
in  one  sentence  of  how  the  gifts  which  thus  come  to 
men  by  that  Divine  Spirit  derive  their  character- 
istic quality  from  their  very  medium  of  communication. 
There  are  many  other  blessings  for  which  we  have  to 
say,  *  Blessed  be  God ' ;  for  all  the  gifts  that  come 
from  '  the  Father  of  Lights '  are  light,  and  everything 
that  the  Fountain  of  sweetness  bestows  upon  mankind 
is  sweet,  but  earthly  blessings  are  but  the  shadow  of 
blessing.  They  remain  without  us,  and  they  pass.   And 


V.3]      « ALL  SPIRITUAL  BLESSITs^GS'       11 

if  they  were  all  for  which  we  had  to  praise  God,  our 
praises  had  need  to  be  often  checked  by  sobs  and  tears, 
and  often  very  doubtful  and  questioning.  If  there 
were  none  other  but  such,  and  if  this  poor  life  were  all, 
then  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  true  that  it  is 

•better  to  have  loved  and  lost. 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all.' 


It  is  but  a  quavering  voice  of  praise,  with  many  a 
sob  between,  that  goes  up  to  bless  God  for  anything 
but  spiritual  blessings.  Though  it  is  true  that  all  which 
comes  from  the  Father  of  Lights  is  light,  the  sorrows 
and  troubles  that  He  sends  have  the  light  terribly 
muffled  in  darkness,  and  it  needs  strong  faith  and 
insight  to  pierce  through  the  cloud  to  see  the  gleam  of 
anything  bright  beneath.  But  when  we  turn  to  this 
other  region,  and  think  of  what  comes  to  every  poor, 
tremulous,  human  heart,  that  likes  to  take  it  through 
that  Divine  Spirit — the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  recti- 
fication of  errors,  the  purification  of  lusts  and  passions, 
the  gleams  of  hope  on  the  future,  and  the  access  with 
confidence  into  the  standing  and  place  of  children  :  oh, 
then  surely  we  can  say,  '  Blessed  be  God  for  spiritual 
blessings.' 

But  if  the  word  which  defines  may  thus  seem  to 
limit,  the  other  word  which  accompanies  it  sweeps 
away  every  limit;  for  it  calls  upon  us  to  bless  God  for 
all  spiritual  blessings.  That  is  to  say,  there  is  no  gap 
in  His  gift.  It  is  rounded  and  complete  and  perfect. 
Whatever  a  man's  needs  may  require,  whatever  his 
hopes  can  dream,  whatever  his  wishes  can  stretch  out 
towards,  it  is  all  here,  compacted  and  complete.  The 
spiritual  gifts  are  encyclopsediacal  and  all-sufficient. 


12      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.i. 

They  are  not  segments,  but  completed  circles.  When 
God  gives  He  gives  amply. 

II.  So  much,  then,  for  the  first  point;  now,  in  the 
second  place,  note  the  one  divine  act  by  which  all  these 
blessings  have  been  bestowed. 

'  Blessed  be  God  who  has  given ' ;  or,  still  more  defi- 
nitely, pointing  to  some  one  specific  moment  and  deed 
in  which  the  benefaction  was  completed,  'Blessed  be 
God  who  gave.* 

When?  Well,  ideally  in  the  depths  of  His  own 
eternal  mind  the  gift  was  complete  or  ever  the 
recipients  were  created  to  receive  it,  and  historically 
the  gift  was  complete  in  the  act  of  redemption  when 
He  spared  not  His  Own  Son,  but  gave  Him  up  unto 
the  death  for  us  all.  A  man  may  destine  an  estate  for 
the  benefit  of  some  community  which  for  generations 
long  may  continue  to  enjoy  its  benefits,  but  the  gift  is 
complete  when  he  signs  the  deed  that  makes  it  over. 
Humphrey  Chetham  gave  the  boys  in  his  school  to-day 
their  education  when,  centuries  ago,  he  assigned  his 
property  to  that  beneficent  purpose.  So,  away  back 
in  the  mists  of  Eternity  the  gift  was  completed,  and 
the  signature  was  put  to  the  deed  when  Jesus  Christ 
was  born,  and  the  seal  was  added  when  Jesus  Christ 
died.    '  Blessed  be  God  who  hath  given.' 

So,  then,  we  may  not  only  draw  the  conclusion  which 
the  Apostle  drew,  '  how  shall  He  not  with  Him  also 
freely  give  us  all  things?'  but  we  can  draw  an  even 
grander  one,  '  Has  He  not  with  Him  also  freely  given 
us  all  things  ? '  And  we  possess  them  all  to-day  if  our 
hearts  are  resting  on  Jesus  Christ.  The  limit  of  the 
gift  is  only  in  ourselves.  All  has  been  given,  but  the 
question  remains  how  much  has  been  taken. 

Oh,  Christian  men  and  women,  there  is  nothing  that 


V.3]      'ALL  SPIRITUAL  BLESSINGS*       13 

we  require  more  than  to  have  what  we  have,  to  possess 
what  is  ours,  to  make  our  own  what  has  been  bestowed. 
You  sometimes  hear  of  some  beggar,  or  private  soldier, 
or  farm  labourer,  who  has  come  all  at  once  into  an 
estate  that  was  his,  years  before  he  knew  anything 
about  it.  There  is  such  a  boundless  wealth  belonging 
by  right,  and  by  the  Giver's  gift,  to  every  Christian 
soul ;  and  yet,  here  are  we,  many  of  us,  like  the  paupers 
who  sometimes  turn  up  in  workhouses,  all  in  rags,  and 
with  deposit-receipts  for  £200  or  £300  stitched  into  the 
rags,  that  they  get  no  good  out  of.  Here  are  we,  with 
all  that  wealth,  paupers  still.  Be  sure  that  you  have 
what  you  have.  Do  you  remember  the  exhortation 
to  a  valiant  effort  in  one  of  the  stories  in  the  Old 
Testament — 'Know  ye  that  Ramoth-gilead  is  ours, 
and  we  take  it  not?'  And  that  is  exactly  what  is 
true  about  hosts  of  professing  Christians  who  have 
not,  in  any  real  sense,  the  possession  of  what  God 
has  given  them.  It  is  well  to  ask,  for  our  desires 
are  the  measures  of  our  capacities.  It  is  well  to 
ask,  but  we  very  often  ask  w^hen  what  is  wanted 
is  not  that  we  should  get  more,  but  that  we  should 
utilise  what  we  have.  And  we  make  mistakes  therein, 
as  if  God  needed  to  be  besought  to  give,  when 
all  the  while  it  is  we  who  need  to  be  stirred  up  to 
grasp  and  keep  the  things  that  are  freely  given  to  us 
of  God. 

III.  In  the  next  place,  notice  the  one  place  where  all 
these  blessings  are  kept. 

'  Blessed  be  God  who  has  blessed  us  with  all  spiritual 
blessings  in  heavenly  places.'  '  In  heavenly  places.' 
Now  that  does  not  merely  define  the  region  of  origin, 
the  locality  where  they  originated  or  whence  they 
come.      It   does  do   that,   but   it  does   a   great   deal 


14      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.l 

more.  It  does  not  merely  tell  us,  as  we  often  are  dis- 
posed to  think  that  it  does,  that  '  every  good  and  every 
perfect  gift  is  from  above,  and  cometh  down ' — though 
that  is  perfectly  true,  but  it  means  much  rather  that 
in  order  to  get  the  gift  we  must  go  up.  They  are  in 
the  heavenly  places,  and  they  cannot  live  anywhere 
else.  They  have  been  sticking  shrubs  in  tubs  outside 
our  public  buildings  this  last  week.  How  long  will 
they  keep  their  leaves  and  their  freshness  ?  How  soon 
will  they  need  to  be  shifted  and  taken  back  again  to 
the  sweeter  air,  where  they  can  flourish?  God's 
spiritual  gifts  cannot  grow  in  smoke  and  dirt  and  a 
polluted  atmosphere.  And  if  a  professing  Christian 
man  lives  his  life  on  the  low  levels  he  will  have  very 
few  of  the  heavenly  gifts  coming  down  to  him  there. 
And  that  is  the  reason — the  reason  above  all  others — 
why,  with  such  a  large  provision  made  for  all  possible 
necessities  and  longings  of  all  sorts,  people  who  call 
themselves  Christians  go  up  and  down  the  world  feeble 
and  poor,  and  with  little  enjoyment  of  their  religion, 
and  having  verified  scarcely  anything  of  the  great 
promises  which  God  has  given  them. 

Brother,  according  to  the  old  word  with  which  the 
Mass  used  to  begin,  ' Sursum  corda' — up  with  your 
hearts!  The  blessings  are  in  the  heavens,  and  if  we 
want  them  we  must  go  where  they  are.  It  is  not 
enough  to  drink  sparing  draughts  from  the  stream  as 
it  flows  through  the  plain.  Travel  up  to  the  head-' 
waters,  where  the  great  pure  fountain  is,  that 
gushes  out  abundant  and  inexhaustible.  The  gifts  are 
heavenly,  and  there  they  abide,  and  thither  we  must 
mount  if  we  would  possess  them. 

Now  that  this  understanding  of  the  words  is  correct 
I  think  is  clearly  shown  by  a  verse  in  the  next  chapter, 


V.3]      'ALL  SPIRITUAL  BLESSINGS*      15 

where  we  find  the  very  same  phrase  employed.  In  this 
connection  the  Apostle  says  that  *  God  hath  raised 
us  up  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus.' 
That  is  to  say,  the  true  ideal  of  the  Christian  life  is 
that,  even  here  and  now,  it  is  a  life  of  such  intimate 
union  and  incorporation  with  Jesus  Christ  as  that 
where  He  is  we  are,  and  that  even  whilst  we  tabernacle 
upon  earth  and  move  about  amongst  its  illusions  and 
changing  scenes,  in  the  depth  of  our  true  being  we  may 
be  fixed,  and  sit  at  rest  with  Christ  where  He  is. 

Do  not  dismiss  that  as  mere  pulpit  rhetoric.  Do  not 
say  that  it  is  mystical  and  incomprehensible,  and  cannot 
be  reduced  into  practice  amidst  the  distractions  of  daily 
life.  Brethren,  it  is  not  so !  Jesus  Christ  Himself  said 
about  Himself  that  He  came  down  from  heaven,  and 
that  though  He  did,  even  whilst  He  wore  the  likeness 
of  the  flesh,  and  was  one  of  us.  He  was  '  the  Son  of  Man 
which  is  in  Heaven,'  when  He  lay  in  the  manger,  when 
He  worked  at  the  carpenter's  bench  in  Nazareth,  when 
He  walked  with  weary  feet  those  blessed  acres,  when 
He  hung,  for  our  advantage,  on  the  bitter  Cross.  And 
that  was  no  incommunicable  property  of  His  mysteri- 
ous nature,  but  it  was  the  typical  example  of  what  it 
is  possible  for  manhood  to  be.  And  you  and  I,  if  we 
are  to  possess  in  any  measure  corresponding  with  the 
gift  of  Christ  the  spiritual  blessing  which  God  bestows, 
must  have  our  lives  '  hid  with  Christ  in  God,'  and  sit 
together  with  Him  in  the  heavenly  places. 

ly.  Lastly,  note  the  one  Person  in  whom  all  spiritual 
blessings  are  enshrined. 

'  In  the  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus.'  You  cannot 
separate  between  Him  and  His  gifts,  neither  in  the 
way  of  getting  Him  without  them,  nor  in  the  way  of 
getting  them  without  Him.    They  are  Himself,  and  in 


16      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [c5h.i. 

the  deepest  analysis  all  spiritual  blessings  are  reducible 
to  one — viz.  that  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself 
shall  dwell  with  us. 

Now,  that  union  by  which  it  is  possible  for  poor, 
empty,  sinful  creatures  to  be  filled  with  His  fulness, 
animated  with  His  life,  strengthened  with  His  omnipo- 
tence, and  sanctified  by  His  indwelling — that  union  is 
the  very  kernel  of  this  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 

I  dare  say  I  have  often  drawn  your  attention  to  the 
singular  emphasis  and  repetition  with  which  that 
phrase  '  in  Christ '  occurs  throughout  the  letter.  Just 
take  the  two  or  three  instances  of  it  that  I  gather  as  I 
speak.  In  this  first  chapter  we  read,  'the  faithful  in 
Jesus  Christ.'  Then  comes  our  text,  '  blessings  in 
heavenly  places  in  Christ.'  Then,  in  the  very  next 
verse,  we  read,  *  chosen  us  in  Him.'  Then,  a  verse  or 
two  after,  we  have  *  accepted  in  the  Beloved,'  which  is 
immediately  followed  by, '  in  whom  we  have  redemp- 
tion through  His  blood.*  Then,  again,  '  that  He  might 
gather  together  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  in  whom 
also  we  have  obtained  the  inheritance.'  I  need  not 
make  other  quotations,  but  throughout  the  letter  every 
blessing  that  can  gladden  or  sanctify  the  human  spirit 
is  regarded  by  the  Apostle  as  being  stored  and  shrined 
in  Jesus  Christ :  inseparable  from  Him,  and  therefore 
to  be  found  by  us  only  in  union  with  Him. 

And  that  is  the  point  of  all  which  I  want  to  say — 
viz.  that,  inasmuch  as  all  spiritual  blessings  that  a  soul 
can  need  are  hived  in  Him  in  whom  is  all  sweetness, 
the  way,  and  the  only  way,  to  get  them  is  that  we,  too, 
should  pass  into  Him  and  dwell  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  is 
His  own  teaching :  '  I  am  the  Vine,  ye  are  the  branches. 
Abide  in  Me.  Separate  from  Me  ye  can  do  nothing,' 
and  get  nothing,  and  are  nothing. 


V.3]       *  ALL  SPIRITUAL  BLESSINGS*      17 

Oh,  brethren!  it  is  well  that  all  our  treasures  should 
be  in  one  place.  It  is  better  that  they  should  all  be  in 
One  Person.  And  if  only  we  will  lay  our  poor  empti- 
ness by  the  side  of  His  fulness  there  will  pass  over 
from  that  infinite  abundance  and  sufficiency  every- 
thing that  we  can  require. 

We  abide  in  Him  by  faith,  by  meditation,  by  love,  by 
submission,  by  practical  obedience,  and,  if  we  are  wise, 
the  effort  of  our  lives  will  be  to  keep  close  to  that  Lord. 
As  long  as  we  keep  touch  with  Him  we  have  all  and 
abound.  Break  the  connection  by  wandering  away,  in 
thought  and  desire,  by  indulgence  in  sin,  by  letting 
earthly  passions  surge  in  and  separate  us  from  Him — 
break  the  connection  by  rebellion,  by  making  ourselves 
our  own  ends  and  lords,  and  it  is  like  switching  off  the 
electricity.  Everything  falls  dead.  You  cannot  have 
Christ's  blessing  unless  you  take  Christ. 

And  so,  dear  brethren,  'abide  in  Me  and  I  in  you.* 
There  is  nothing  else  that  will  make  us  blessed  ;  there 
is  nothing  else  that  will  meet  all  the  circumference  of 
our  necessities ;  there  is  nothing  else  that  will  quiet  our 
hearts,  will  sanctify  our  understandings.  Christ  is 
yours  if  'ye  are  Christ's.'  '  Of  His  fulness  have  all  we 
received,'  for  it  all  became  ours  when  we  became  His, 
and  Christian  growth  on  earth  and  heaven  is  but  the 
unfolding  of  the  folded  graces  that  are  contained  in 
Him.  We  possess  the  whole  Christ,  but  eternity  is 
needed  to  disclose  all  the  unsearchable  riches  of  our 
inheritance  in  Him. 


B 


•ACCORDING  TO'— I. 

'  According  to  the  good  pleasure  of  His  will,  .  .  .  According  to  the  richea 
of  His  grace.'— Eph.  1.  6,  7. 

That  phrase,  *  according  to,'  is  one  of  the  key-words 
of  this  profound  epistle,  'which  occurs  over  and  over 
again,  like  a  refrain.  I  reckon  twelve  instances  of  it  in 
three  chapters  of  the  letter,  and  they  all  introduce  one 
or  other  of  the  two  thoughts  which  appear  in  the  two 
fragments  that  I  have  taken  for  my  text.  They  either 
point  out  how  the  great  blessings  of  Christ's  mission 
have  underlying  them  the  divine  purpose,  or  they 
point  out  how  the  process  of  the  Christian  life  in  the 
individual  has  for  its  source  and  measure  the  abun- 
dances, the  wealth  of  the  grace  and  the  power  of  God. 
So  in  both  aspects  the  facts  of  earth  are  traced  up  to, 
and  declared  to  be,  the  outcome  of  the  heavenly 
depths,  and  that  gives  solemnity,  grandeur,  elevation, 
to  this  epistle  all  its  own.  We  are  carried,  as  it  w^ere, 
away  up  into  the  recesses  of  the  mountains  of  God, 
and  we  look  down  upon  the  unruffled,  mysterious, 
deep  lake,  from  which  come  the  rivers  that  water  all 
the  plains  beneath. 

Now  of  these  two  types  of  reference  to  the  divine 
will  and  the  divine  wealth,  I  should  like  to  gather 
together  the  instances,  as  they  occur  in  this  letter,  in 
so  far  as  I  can,  in  the  course  of  a  sermon,  touching 
them,  it  must  be,  very  imperfectly.  But  I  fear  that  it 
is  impossible  to  deal  with  both  the  phases  of  this 
'according  to,'  in  one  discourse.  So  I  confine  myself 
to  that  which  is  suggested  by  the  first  of  our  two 
texts,  in  the  hope  that  some  other  day  we  may  be 
able  to  overtake  the  other.     So  then,  we  have  set 

IS 


vs.  5, 7]  *  ACCORDING  TO  '—I.  19 

before  us  here  the  Christian  thought  of  the  divine  will 
vrhich  underlies,  and  therefore  is  manifest  by,  the 
work  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  its  whole  sweep  and  breadth. 
And  I  just  take  up  the  various  instances  in  which  this 
expression  occurs  in  a  great  variety  of  forms,  but  all 
retaining  substantially  the  same  meaning. 

I.  Note  that  that  divine  will  which  underlies  and 
is  operative  in,  and  therefore  is  certified  to  us  by  the 
whole  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  its  facts  and  its  con- 
sequences, is  a  '  good  pleasure.' 

Now  there  are  few  thoughts  which  the  history  of 
the  world  has  shown  to  be  more  productive  of  iron  and 
steel  in  the  human  character  than  that  of  the  sovereign 
will  of  God.  That  made  Islam,  and  is  the  secret  of  its 
power  to-day,  amidst  its  many  corruptions.  Because 
these  wild  desert  tribes  were  all  stiffened,  or  I  might 
say  inflamed,  by  that  profound  conviction,  the  sove- 
reign will  of  God,  they  came  down  like  a  hammer 
upon  that  corrupt  so-called  Christian  Church,  and 
swept  it  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  as  it  deserved  to  be 
swept.  And  the  same  thought  of  the  sovereign  will, 
of  which  we  are  but  instruments — pawns  on  its  chess- 
board— made  the  grand  seventeenth  century  Puritanism 
in  England,  and  its  sister  type  of  men  and  of  religion 
in  Holland.  For  this  is  a  historically  proved  thesis, 
that  there  is  nothing  which  so  contributes  to  the  for- 
mation, and  valuation  of,  and  the  readiness  to  die  for, 
civil  liberty,  as  the  firm  grasp  of  that  thought  of  the 
divine  sovereignty.  Just  because  a  man  realises  that 
the  will  of  God  is  supreme  over  all  the  earth,  he  rebels 
against  all  forms  of  human  despotism. 

But  with  all  the  good  that  is  in  that  great  thought 
— and  the  Christianity  of  this  day  sorely  wants  the 
strength  that  might  be  given  it  by  the  exhibition  of 


20      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [ch.i. 

that  steel  medicine  —  it  wants  another,  'the  good 
pleasure  of  His  will.'  And  that  word,  '  good  pleasure, 
does  not  express,  as  I  think,  in  Paul's  usage  of  it,  the 
simple  notion  of  sovereignty,  but  always  the  notion  of 
a  benevolent  sovereignty.  It  is  'the  good  pleasure' — 
as  it  is  put  in  another  place  by  the  same  Apostle — *  of 
His  goodness.'  And  that  thought,  let  in  upon  the 
solemnity  and  severity  of  the  other  one,  is  all  that  it 
needs  in  order  to  make  the  man  who  grasps  it  not 
only  a  hero  in  conflict,  and  a  patient  martyr  in  en- 
durance, but  a  child  in  his  Father's  house,  rejoicing  in 
the  love  of  his  Father  everywhere  and  always. 

Paul  would  hav^e  us  believe  that  if  we  will  take  the 
work  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  facts  of  His  life,  and  its 
results  upon  humanity,  as  our  horn-book  and  lesson, 
we  shall  draw  from  that  some  conceptions  of  the  great 
thing  that  underlies  it,  '  the  good  pleasure  of  His  will.' 
We  stand  in  front  of  this  complex  universe,  and  some 
of  us  say:  'Law';  and  some  of  us  say:  'A  Lawgiver 
behind  the  law ;  a  Person  at  the  heart  of  all  things ' ; 
but  unless  we  can  say :  '  And  in  the  heart  of  the  Person 
a  will,  which  is  the  expression  of  a  steadfast,  omnipo- 
tent love,'  then  the  world  seems  to  me  to  be  a  place  of 
unsolvable  riddles  and  a  torture-house.  There  goes 
the  great  steam-roller  along  the  road.  Everybody  can 
see  that  it  crushes  down,  and  makes  its  own  path. 
Who  drives  it  ?  The  steam  in  the  boiler,  or  is  there  a 
hand  on  the  lever?  And  what  drives  the  hand? 
Christianity  answers,  and  answers  with  unfaltering 
lip,  rising  clear  above  contradictions  apparent  and 
difficulties  real,  '  The  good  pleasure  of  His  will,'  and 
there  men  can  rest. 

Then  there  is  another  step.  Another  form  in  which 
this  •  according  to'  appears  in  this  letter  is,  if  we  adopt 


v8. 5, 7]  *  ACCORDING  TO  '—I.  21 

the  rendering,  which  I  am  disposed  to  do  in  the  present 
case,  of  the  Authorised  Version  rather  than  of  the 
Revised, 'according  to  His  good  pleasure  .  .  .  which  He 
hath  purposed  in  Himself.'  The  Revised  Version  says, 
'Which  He  hath  purposed  in  Him,'  and  that  is  a 
perfectly  possible  rendering.  But  to  me  the  old  one  is 
not  only  more  eloquent,  but  more  in  accordance  with 
the  connection.  So  I  venture  to  accept  it  without 
further  ado — '  His  good  pleasure  which  He  hath  pur- 
posed in  Himself.' 

That  brings  us  into  the  presence  of  that  same  great 
thought,  which  in  another  aspect  is  expressed  in 
saying  '  His  name  is  Jehovah,'  and  in  yet  another 
aspect  is  expressed  in  saying  '  God  is  love,'  viz.  the 
thought  which  sounds  familiar,  but  which  has  in  it 
depths  of  strength  and  illumination  and  joy,  if  we 
rightly  ponder  it,  that,  to  use  human  words,  the 
motive  of  the  divine  action  is  all  found  within  the 
divine  nature. 

We  love  one  another  because  we  discern,  or  think 
we  discern,  lovable  qualities  in  the  being  on  whom  our 
love  falls.  God  loves  because  He  is  God.  That  great 
artesian  fountain  wells  up  from  the  depths,  by  its  own 
sweet  impulse,  and  pours  itself  out ;  and  '  the  good 
pleasure  of  His  goodness '  has  no  other  explanation 
than  that  it  is  His  nature  and  property  to  be  merciful. 
And  so,  dear  brethren,  we  get  clean  past  what  has 
sometimes  been  the  misapprehension  of  good  people, 
and  has  of  tener  been  the  caricatured  representation  of 
Evangelical  truth  which  its  enemies  have  put  forth— 
that  God  was  made  to  love  and  pity  by  reason  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Son,  whereas  the  very  opposite  is  the 
case.  God  loves,  therefore  He  sent  His  Son,  '  that 
whosoever  believeth  in   Him  should  not  perish    but 


22      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.l 

have  everlasting  life,'  and  the  notion  of  the  Cross  of 
Christ  as  changing  the  divine  heart  is  as  far  away 
from  Evangelical  truth  as  it  is  from  the  natural  con- 
ceptions that  men  form  of  the  divine  nature.  We 
shake  hands  with  our  so-called  antagonists  and  say, 
'  Yes  I  we  believe  as  much  as  you  do  that  God  does  not 
love  us  because  Christ  died,  but  we  believe  what  per- 
haps you  do  not,  that  Christ  died  because  God  loves 
us,  and  would  save  us.'  '  The  good  pleasure  which  He 
hath  purposed  in  Himself.' 

Then,  still  further,  there  is  another  aspect  of  this 
same  divine  will  brought  out  in  other  parts  of  this 
letter,  of  which  this  is  a  specimen,  '  Having  made 
known  unto  us  the  mystery  of  His  will,  according  to 
His  good  pleasure  which  He  hath  purposed  in  Himself, 
that  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  the  times  He 
might  gather  together  in  one  all  things  in  Christ,' 
which,  being  turned  into  more  modern  phraseology, 
is  just  this  —  that  the  great  aim  of  that  divine 
sovereign  will,  self-originated,  full  of  loving-kindness 
to  the  world,  is  to  manifest  to  all  men  what  God  is, 
that  all  men  may  know  Him  for  what  He  is,  and  there- 
by be  drawn  back  again,  and  grouped  in  peaceful  unity 
round  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  the  intention 
which  is  deepest  in  the  divine  heart,  the  desire  which 
God  has  most  for  every  one  of  us.  And  when  the  Old 
Testament  tells  us  that  the  great  motive  of  the  divine 
action  is  for  'My  own  Name's  sake,'  that  expression 
might  be  so  regarded  as  to  disclose  an  ugly  despot, 
w^ho  only  wants  to  be  reverenced  by  abject  and  sub- 
missive subjects.  But  what  it  really  means  is  this, 
that  the  divine  love  which  hovers  over  its  poor,  prodigal 
children  because  it  is  love,  and,  therefore,  lovingly 
delights  in  a  loving  recognition  and  response,  desires 


vs.  5, 7]  'ACCORDING  TO '—I.  23 

most  of  all  that  all  the  wanderers  should  see  the  light, 
and  that  every  soul  of  man  should  be  able  to  whisper, 
with  loving  heart,  the  name,  *  Abba  !  Father ! '  Is  not 
that  an  uplifting  thought  as  being  the  dominant 
motive  which  puts  in  action  the  whole  of  the  divine 
activity  ?  God  created  in  order  that  He  might  fling 
His  light  upon  creatures,  who  should  thereby  be  glad. 
And  God  has  redeemed  in  order  that  in  Jesus  Christ  we 
might  see  Him,  and,  seeing  Him,  be  at  rest,  and  begin 
to  grow  like  Him.  This  is  the  aim,  'That  they  might 
know  Thee,  the  only  true  God  .  .  .  whom  to  know  is 
eternal  life.'  And  so  self-communication  and  self- 
revelation  is  the  very  central  mystery  of  the  will. 

But  that  is  not  all.  Another  of  the  forms  in  which 
this  phrase  occurs  tells  us  th;i  t  that  great  purpose,  the 
eternal  purpose  which  He  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord,  was  that,  'Now  unto  the  principalities  and 
powers  in  heavenly  places  might  be  known '  by  the 
Church  '  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God.'  And  so  we  get 
another  thought,  that  that  whole  work  of  redemption, 
operated  by  the  Incarnation,  and  culminating  in  the 
Crucifixion  and  Resurrection  and  Ascension  of  Jesus 
Christ,  stands  as  being  the  means  by  which  other 
orders  of  creatures,  besides  ourselves,  learn  to  know 
•  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God.'  According  to  the  grand 
old  saying,  at  Creation  the  'morning  stars  sang  to- 
gether for  joy.'  All  spiritual  creatures,  be  they  '  higher' 
or  'lower,'  can  only  know  God  by  the  observation  of 
His  acts. 

'  'Twas  great  to  speak  a  world  from  nought, 
*Tis  greater  to  redeem,' 

and  the  same  angelic  lips  that  sang  these  praises 
on  the  morning  of  Creation  have  learnt  a  new  song 


24      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.i. 

that  they  sing :  *  Glory  and  honour  and  dominion  and 
power  be  unto  the  Lamb  that  was  slain.' 

Thus  to  principalities  and  powers,  a  diviner  height  in 
the  loftiness,  and  a  diviner  depth  in  the  condescension, 
and  a  diviner  tenderness  in  the  love,  and  a  diviner  energy 
in  the  power,  of  the  redeeming  God  have  been  made 
known,  and  this  is  the  thought  of  His  eternal  purpose. 
And  that  brings  me  to  another  point  which  is  in- 
volved in  the  words  that  I  have  just  quoted,  which 
stand  in  connection  with  those  that  I  have  previously 
referred  to.  The  phrase  '  eternal  purpose  *  literally 
rendered  is,  'the  purpose  of  the  ages,'  and  that,  no 
doubt,  may  mean  'eternal'  in  the  sense  of  running  on 
through  all  the  ages ;  or  it  may  mean,  perhaps,  that 
which  we  usually  attach  to  the  word  'eternal,'  viz. 
unbeginning  and  unending.  I  take  the  former  mean- 
ing as  the  more  probable  one,  that  the  Apostle  con- 
templates that  great  will  of  God  which  culminates  in 
Jesus  Christ,  as  coming  solemnly  sweeping  through  all 
the  epochs  of  time  from  the  beginning.  In  a  deeper 
sense  than  the  poet  meant  it,  '  Through  the  ages  an 
increasing  purpose  runs,'  and  that  binds  the  epochs 
of  humanity  together — '  the  purpose  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus.'  The  philosophy  of  history  lies  there,  and  it  is 
a  true  instinct  that  makes  the  cradle  at  Bethlehem 
the  pivot  around  which  the  world's  chronology  re- 
volves. For  the  deepest  thing  about  all  the  ages  on 
the  further  side  of  it  is  that  they  are  '  Before  Christ,' 
and  the  formative  fact  for  all  the  ages  after  it  is  that 
they  are  Anno  Domini. 

And  now  the  last  thing  that  is  suggested  by  yet 
another  of  these  eloquent  expressions  is  deduced  from 
another  part  of  the  same  phrase.  The  purpose  of  the 
ages  is  described  as  that  which  '  He  purposed  in  Christ 


vs.  6, 7]  *  ACCORDING  TO'— I.  25 

Jesus  our  Lord.'  Now  the  word  '  purposed '  literally 
is  'made.'  And  it  may  be  a  question  whether  'pur- 
posed '  or  *  accomplished'  is  the  special  moaning  to  be 
attached  to  the  general  word  'made.'  Either  is  legiti- 
mate. I  take  it  that  what  the  Apostle  means  here  is 
that  the  purpose  of  God,  which  we  have  thus  seen  as 
sovereign,  self-originated,  having  for  its  great  aim  the 
communication  to  all  His  creatures  of  the  knowledge 
of  Himself,  and  running  through  the  ages,  and  binding 
them  into  a  unity,  reaches  its  entire  accomplishment 
in  the  Cradle,  and  the  Cross,  and  the  Throne  of  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord. 

He  fulfils  the  divine  intention.  There  is  that  one 
life,  and  in  that  life  alone  of  humanity  you  have 
a  character  which  is  in  entire  sympathy  with  the 
divine  mind,  which  is  in  full  possession  of  the 
divine  truth,  which  never  diverges  or  deviates 
by  a  hair's-breadth  from  the  divine  will,  which 
is  the  complete  and  perfect  exponent  to  man  of  the 
divine  heart  and  character ;  and  that  Christ  is  the 
fulfilment  of  all  that  God  desired  in  the  depths  of 
eternity,  and  the  abysses  of  His  being.  Did  He  will 
that  men  should  know  Him?  Christ  has  declared 
Him.  Did  He  will  that  men  should  be  drawn  back 
to  Him  ?  Christ  lifted  on  the  Cross  draws  all  men 
unto  Him.  "Was  it  '  according  to  the  good  pleasure  of 
His  goodness '  that  we  men  should  attain  to  the  adop- 
tion of  sons  ?  By  that  Son  we  too  became  sons.  Was 
it  the  purpose  of  His  will  that  we  should  obtain  an 
'inheritance'?  We  obtain  it  in  Jesus  Christ,  'being 
heirs  of  God,  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ.'  All  that 
God  willed  to  do  is  done.  And  when  we  look,  on  the 
one  hand,  up  to  that  infinite  purpose,  and  on  the 
other,  to  the  Cross,  we  hear  from  the  dying  lips,  'It  is 


26      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  l 

finished  I'    The  purpose  of  the  ages  is  accomplished  in 
Christ  Jesus. 

Is  it  accomplished  with  you  ?  I  have  been  speaking 
about  the  divine  counsel  which  is  a  '  good  pleasure,' 
which  runs  through  the  whole  history  of  mankind. 
But  it  is  a  divine  purpose  that  you  can  thwart  as 
far  as  you  are  concerned.  'How  often  would  I 
have  gathered  .  .  .  and  ye  would  not,'  and  your 
'  would  not '  neutralises  His  '  would.'  Do  not  stand  in 
the  way  of  the  steam-roller.  You  cannot  stop  it,  but 
it  can  crush  you.  Do  not  have  Him  say  about  j^ou, 
♦In  vain  have  I  smitten,  in  vain  have  I  loved.'  Bow, 
accept,  recognise  that  all  God's  armoury  is  brought  to 
bear  upon  each  of  us  in  that  great  Cross  and  Passion, 
in  that  great  Incarnation  and  human  life.  And  I 
beseech  you,  in  your  hearts,  let  the  will  of  God  be 
done  even  as  for  a  world  it  has  been  done  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Calvary. 


•  ACCORDING  TO  *— IL 

•According  to  the  riches  o(  His  grace.'— Bph.  1.  T. 

We  have  seen,  in  a  previous  sermon,  that  a  charac- 
teristic note  of  this  letter  is  the  frequent  occurrence  of 
that  phrase  'according  to.'  I  also  then  pointed  out 
that  it  was  employed  in  two  different  directions.  One 
class  of  passages,  with  which  I  then  tried  to  deal,  used 
it  to  compare  the  divine  purpose  in  our  salvation  with 
the  historical  process  of  the  salvation.  The  type  of 
that  class  of  reference  is  found  in  a  verse  just  before 
my  text,  '  according  to  the  good  pleasure  of  His  will.' 
There  is  a  second  class  of  passages  to  which  our  text 
belongs,  where  the   comparison  is   not  between  the 


V.7]  'ACCORDING  TO'— II.  27 

purpose  and  its  realisation,  but  between  the  stores  of 
the  divine  riches  and  the  experiences  of  the  Christian 
life.  The  one  set  of  passages  suggests  the  ground  of 
our  salvation  in  the  deep  purpose  of  God ;  the  other 
suggests  the  measure  of  the  power  which  is  working 
out  that  salvation. 

The  instances  of  this  second  use  of  the  phrase,  besides 
the  one  in  my  text,  '  according  to  the  riches  of  His 
grace,'  are  such  as  these :  '  According  to  the  riches  of 
His  glory';  'According  to  the  power  that  worketh  in 
us';  'According  to  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ'; 
'According  to  the  energy  of  the  might  of  His  power, 
which  He  wrought  in  Christ  when  He  raised  Him  from 
the  dead.' 

Now  it  is  clear  that  all  these  are  varying  forms  of 
the  same  thing.  They  vary  in  form,  they  are  identical 
in  substance.  What  a  Jew  calls  a  '  cubit '  an  English- 
man calls  a  '  foot,'  but  the  result  is  pretty  nearly  the 
same.  Shillings,  marks,  francs,  are  various  standards; 
they  all  come  to  substantially  the  same  result.  These 
varying  measures  of  the  divine  gift  which  is  at  work 
in  man's  salvation,  have  this  in  common,  that  they 
all  run  out  into  God's  immeasurable,  unlimited  power, 
boundless  wealth.  And  so,  if  we  gather  them  together, 
and  try  to  focus  them  in  a  few  words,  they  may  help  to 
widen  our  conceptions  of  what  we  ought  to  expect 
from  God,  to  bow  us  in  contrition  as  to  the  small  use 
that  we  have  made  of  it,  and  to  open  our  desires  wide, 
that  they  may  be  filled. 

I  only  aspire,  then,  to  deal  with  these  four  forms 
which  I  have  already  suggested. 

I.  The  measure  of  our  possible  attainments  is  the 
whole  wealth  of  God. 

•According  to  the  riches  of    His  grace.'     Another 


28      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.l 

angle  at  which  the  same  thought  is  viewed  appears  in 
another  part  of  the  letter,  where  we  have  this  varia- 
tion in  the  expression,  '  According  to  the  riches  of  His 
glory.'  '  Grace  '  and  '  Glory '  are  generally  opposed 
antithetically ;  in  this  epistle  they  are  united,  for  in 
the  verse  before  my  text  I  read :  '  To  the  praise  of 
the  glory  of  Ilis  grace.'  So  the  first  thought  is,  the 
whole  wealth  of  God  is  available  for  every  Christian 
soul. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are  very  few  things 
that  the  popular  Christianity  of  this  day  needs  more 
than  a  furnishing  up  of  the  familiar  old  Christian 
terminology,  which  has  largely  lost  the  freshness  and 
the  power  that  it  once  had.  They  tell  us  that  these 
incandescent  burners,  that  we  are  using  nowadays,  are 
very  much  more  bright  when  they  are  first  fixed  than 
after  the  mantle  gets  a  little  worn.  So  it  is  with  the 
terminology  of  Christianity.  It  needs  to  be  re-stated, 
not  in  such  a  way  as  to  take  the  pith  out  of  it,  which 
is  what  a  great  deal  of  the  modern  craze  for  re-state- 
ment means,  but  in  such  a  way  as  to  brighten  it  up 
again,  and  to  invest  it  with  something  of  the  'celestial 
light'  with  which  it  was  'apparelled'  when  it  first 
came.  Now  that  word  'grace,'  I  have  no  doubt,  sounds 
to  you  hard,  theological,  remote.  But  what  does  it 
mean?  It  gathers  into  one  burning  point  the  whole 
of  the  rays  of  that  conception  of  God,  with  which  it  is 
the  glory  of  Christianity  to  have  flooded  and  drenched 
the  world.  It  tells  us  that  at  the  heart  of  the  universe 
there  is  a  heart ;  that  God  is  Love,  that  that  love  is  the 
motive-spring  of  His  activity,  that  it  comes  and  bends 
over  the  lowliest  with  a  smile  of  amity  on  its  lips,  with 
healing  and  help  in  its  hands,  with  forgiveness  for 
all  sins  against  itself,  with  boundless  wealth  for  the 


V.7]  « ACCORDING  TO'— II.  29 

poorest,  and  that  the  wealth  of  His  self-communicating 
love  is  the  measure  of  the  wealth  that  each  of  us  niay 
possess. 

God  gives  'according  to  the  riches  of  His  grace.'  You 
do  not  expect  a  millionaire  to  give  half-a-crown  to  a 
subscription  fund ;  and  God  gives  royally,  divinely, 
measuring  His  bestowments  by  the  abundance  of  His 
treasures,  and  handing  over  with  an  open  palm  large 
gifts  of  coined  money,  because  there  are  infinite  chests 
of  uncirculated  bullion  in  the  deep  storehouses.  '  How 
great  is  Thy  goodness  which  Thou  hast  manifested 
before  the  sons  of  men  for  them  that  fear  Thee.  How 
much  greater  is  Thy  goodness  which  Thou  hast  laid  up 
in  store.'  But  whilst  He  gives  all,  the  question  comes 
to  be :  What  do  I  receive  ?  The  measure  of  His  gift  is 
His  measureless  grace;  the  measure  of  my  reception 
is  my — alas !  easily-measured  faith.  What  about  the 
unearned  increment?  What  about  the  unrealised 
wealth  ?  Too  many  of  us  are  like  some  man  who  has 
a  great  estate  in  another  land.  He  knows  nothing 
about  it,  and  is  living  in  grimy  poverty  in  a  back 
street.  For  you  have  all  God's  riches  waiting  for  you, 
and  '  the  potentiality  of  wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice'  at  your  beck  and  call,  and  yet  you  are  but 
poorly  realising  your  possible  riches.  Alas,  that  when 
we  might  have  so  much  we  do  have  so  little.  'Accord- 
ing to  the  riches  of  His  grace'  He  gives.  But  another 
'according  to'  comes  in.  'According  to  thy  faith  be  it 
unto  thee.'  So  we  have  to  take  these  two  measures 
together,  and  the  working  limit  of  our  possession  of 
God's  riches  comes  out  of  the  combination  of  them 
both. 

Let  me  remind  you,  before  I  pass  on,  of  what  I  have 
already  suggested  is  but  another  phase  of  this  same 


30      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [ch.i. 

thought.  Paul  says  in  this  epistle  that  God  gives  not 
only  '  according  to  the  riches  of  His  grace,' but  'accord- 
ing to  the  riches  of  His  glory,'  and  that  the  latter 
expression  is  substantially  identical  with  the  former, 
is  plain  from  the  combination  of  the  two  in  an  earlier 
verse  of  this  chapter :  'To  the  praise  of  the  glory  of 
His  grace.'  Thus  we  come  to  the  blessed  thought  that  the 
glory  of  God  is  essentially  the  revelation  of  that  stoop- 
ing, pitying,  pardoning,  enriching  love.  Not  in  the 
physical  attributes,  not  in  the  characteristics  of  the 
divine  nature  which  part  Him  off  from  men,  and  make 
Him  remote,  both  from  their  conceptions  and  their 
affections,  but  in  the  love  that  bends  to  them  is  the 
true  glory  of  God.  All  these  other  things  are  but  the 
fringes;  the  centre  of  glory  is  the  Love,  which  is  the 
mightiest  and  the  divinest  thing  in  the  Might  Divine. 
The  sunshine  is  far  stronger  than  the  lightning,  and 
there  is  more  force  developed  in  the  rain  than  in  an 
earthquake.  That  truth  is  what  Christianity  has  made 
the  common  possession  of  the  world.  It  has  thereby 
broken  the  chains  of  dread;  it  has  bridged  over  the 
infinite  distance.  It  has  given  us  a  God  that  can  love 
and  be  loved,  can  stoop  and  can  lift,  can  pardon  and 
can  purify.  'According  to  the  good  pleasure  of  His 
goodness,' — there  is  the  foundation  of  our  salvation. 
'According  to  the  riches  of  His  grace,' — there  is  the 
measure  of  our  salvation. 

II.  We  have  another  form  of  the  same  measure  in 
another  set  of  verses  which  speak  of  the  present 
working  of  God's  power. 

The  Apostle  speaks  in  regard  to  his  own  apostolic 
commission  of  its  being  given  'according  to  the  work- 
ing of  His  power' ;  and  he  speaks  of  all  Christian  men 
as  receiving  gifts  '  according  to  the  power  that  worketh 


V.7]  'ACCORDING  TO '-II.  81 

in  us.'  So  there  we  have  a  standard  that  comes,  as  it 
were,  a  little  closer  to  ourselves.  We  do  not  need  to 
travel  up  into  the  dim  abysses  above,  or  think  of  the 
sanctities  and  the  secrecies  of  that  divine  heart  in  the 
light  which  is  inaccessible,  but  we  have  the  measure  in 
ourselves. 

The  standards  of  length  are  kept  at  Greenwich,  the 
standards  of  capacity  are  kept  in  the  Tower;  but  there 
are  local  standards  distributed  throughout  the  land  to 
which  men  may  go  and  have  their  measures  corrected. 
And  so  besides  all  these  lofty  thoughts  about  the  grace 
and  the  glory  which  measures  His  gift,  we  can  turn 
within,  if  we  are  Christian  people,  and  say,  *  According 
to  the  power  that  worketh  in  us.' 

Ah,  brethren !  there  are  few  things  that  we  want 
more  than  to  revive  and  deejjen  the  conviction  that  in 
every  Christian  man,  by  virtue  of  his  faith,  and  in 
proportion  to  his  faith,  there  is  in  operation  an  actual, 
superhuman,  divine  power  moulding  his  nature,guiding, 
quickening,  ennobling,  lifting,  confirming,  and  hallow- 
ing and  shaping  him  into  conformity  with  Jesus  Christ. 
I  would  that  we  all  believed  not  as  a  dogma,  but  realised 
as  a  personal  experience,  that  irrefragable  truth,  'Know 
ye  not  that  the  Spirit  of  Christ  dwelleth  in  you,  except 
ye  be  reprobate?'  The  life  of  self  is  evil;  the  life  of 
Christ  in  self  is  good,  and  only  good.  And  if  you  are 
Christian  men,  and  in  the  proportion,  as  I  have  said,  in 
which  you  are  living  by  faith,  you  have  w^orking  in  your 
spirits  the  very  Spirit  of  Christ  Himself. 

And  that  power  is  the  measure  of  your  possibilities. 
Obviously  '  the  power  that  worketh  in  us '  is  able  to  do 
a  great  deal  more  than  it  is  doing  in  any  of  us.  And 
so  with  deep  significance  the  Apostle,  side  by  side  with 
his  adducing  of  this  power  as  being  the  measure  of  our 


82      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [oh.i. 

possible  attainments,  speaks  about  God  as  being  •  able 
to  do  for  us,  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that  we 
can  ask  or  think.'  '  The  power  that  works  in  us '  tran- 
scends in  its  possibilities  our  present  experience,  it 
transcends  our  conceptions,  it  transcends  our  desires. 
It  is  able  to  do  everything ;  it  actually  does — well,  you 
know  what  it  does  in  you.  And  the  responsibility  of 
hampering  and  hindering  that  power  from  working 
out  its  only  adequately  corresponding  results  lies  at 
our  own  doors.  'A  rushing,  mighty  wind' — yes;  and 
in  myself  a  scarcely  perceptible  breathing,  and  often 
a  dead  calm,  stagnant  as  in  the  latitudes  on  either  side 
of  the  Equator,  where,  for  long,  dreary  days,  no  freshen- 
ing motion  in  the  atmosphere  is  perceptible.  *  A  fire?' 
— yes ;  then  why  is  my  grate  full  of  grey,  cold  ashes, 
and  one  little  spark  in  the  comer  ?  '  A  fountain  spring- 
ing into  everlasting  life?' — yes;  then  why  in  my  basin 
is  there  so  much  scum  and  ooze,  mud  and  defilement, 
and  so  little  of  the  flashing  and  brilliant  water?  'The 
power  that  works  in  us'  is  sorely  hindered  by  the 
weakness  in  which  it  works. 

III.  In  the  third  place  another  form  of  this  measure 
is  stated  by  the  Apostle,  'According  to  the  measure 
of  the  gift  of  Christ* 

That  means,  of  course,  the  gift  which  Christ  bestows. 
It  is  substantially  the  same  idea  as  I  have  just  been 
dealing  with,  only  looked  at  from  rather  a  different 
point  of  view.  Therefore,  I  need  not  dwell  upon  its 
parallelism  with  what  has  just  been  occupying  our 
attention,  but  rather  ask  you  simply  to  consider  one 
point  in  reference  to  it,  and  that  is  that,  side  by  side 
with  the  reference  to  the  gift  of  Christ  as  being  the 
measure  of  our  possible  attainments,  the  Apostle  en- 
larges on  the  Infinite  variety  of  the  shapes  which  that 


▼.  7]  •  ACCORDING  TO  *— I  83 

one  gift  takes  in  different  people.  'He  gave  some 
apostles,  some  prophets,'  etc.;  one  man  receiving  accord- 
ing to  this  fashion,  and  another  according  to  that,  and 
to  each  of  us  the  distribution  is  made  'according  to  the 
measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ.'  That  is  to  say,  it  takes 
us  all,  the  collective  goodness  and  beauty  of  the  whole 
community  of  saints,  to  approximate  to  the  fulness  of 
that  gift,  and  all  are  needed  in  their  different  types 
and  forms  of  excellence,  sanctity  and  beauty,  in  order 
to  set  forth,  even  imperfectly,  the  richness  and  the 
manif oldness  of  His  great  gift.  And  so  '  we  all  come ' 
— there  is  a  multiplicity — 'unto  the  perfect  man,  the 
measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ' — there 
is  a  unity  in  which  the  multiplicity  inheres. 

So  try  to  get  a  little  more  of  some  different  type  of 
excellence  than  that  to  which  you  are  naturally  in- 
clined. Seek,  and  consciously  endeavour,  to  appro- 
priate into  your  character  uncongenial  excellences,  and 
be  very  charitable  in  your  judgments  of  the  different 
types  of  Christian  conformity  to  Christ  our  Lord.  The 
crystals  that  are  set  round  a  light  do  not  quarrel  with 
each  other  as  to  whether  green,  or  yellow,  or  blue, 
or  red,  or  violet  is  the  true  colour  to  reflect.  We  need 
all  the  seven  prismatic  tints  to  make  the  perfect  white 
light.  The  gift  of  Christ  is  many-sided ;  try  not  to  be 
one-sided  in  your  reception  of  it. 

IV.  And  now  the  last  form  of  this  measure  is 
•according  to  the  energy  of  the  might  of  His  power, 
which  He  wrought  in  Christ  when  He  raised  Him  from 
the  dead.' 

When  we  gazed  upon  the  riches  of  God's  grace,  they 
Were  high  above  us,  when  we  looked  upon  'the  power 
that  worketh  in  us,'  we  saw  it  working  amidst  many 
hindrances  and  hamperings,  but  here  there  is  presented 

o 


84        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.i. 

to  us  in  a  concrete  example,  close  beside  us,  of  what  God 
can  make  of  a  man  when  the  man  is  wholly  pliable  to 
His  will,  and  the  recipient  of  His  influences.  And  so 
there  stands  before  us  the  guarantee  and  the  pattern 
of  immortal  life,  the  Christ  whose  Manhood  died  and 
lives,  who  is  clothed  with  a  spiritual  body,  who  wields 
royal  authority  in  the  Kingdom  of  the  Most  High. 
And  that  is  the  measure  of  what  God  can  do  with  me, 
and  wishes  to  do  with  me,  if  I  will  let  Him.  Christ  is 
my  pattern,  and  the  measure  of  my  own  possibilities. 

To  be  with  Him,  where  and  what  He  is,  is  the  only 
adequate  result  of  the  power  that  works  in  us,  and  of 
the  process  that  is  already  begun  in  us,  if  we  are 
Christian  people.  You  are  sometimes — there  is  one 
eminent  example  of  it  in  that  great  Mcdicean  Chapel 
at  Florence  —  a  statue  exquisitely  finished  in  all  its 
limbs,  but  one  part  left  in  the  rough.  That  is  the  best 
that  Christian  people  come  to  here.  Shall  it  always  be 
so?  Do  not  the  very  imperfections  prophesy  com- 
pletion, and  is  it  not  certain  that  the  half  finished 
torso  will  be  carried  to  the  upper  workshop,  and  be 
there  disengaged  from  the  dead  marble  and  made  to 
stand  out  in  perfect  beauty  and  fullest  completeness? 
Christ  is  the  object  of  our  hopes,  and  no  hoi^es  of  the 
Christian  life  are  adequate  to  the  power  that  works  in 
us,  or  to  the  progress  already  made,  which  do  not  see 
in  the  'energy  of  the  might  of  the  power'  which 
wrought  in  Christ,  the  example  and  the  guarantee  of 
the  exceeding  greatness  of  'His  power  which  is  to 
usward.' 

And  now,  one  last  word.  Besides  all  these  passages 
which  have  been  occupying  us,  there  is  another  use  of 
this  same  phrase  in  this  letter  which  presents  a  very 
solemn  and  grim  contrast.     I  can  do  no  better  with  it 


V.7]    GOD'S  INHERITANCE  AND  OURS    35 

than  simply  read  it :  '  Ye  were  dead  in  trespasses  and 
sins;  wherein  in  time  past  ye  walked  according  to  the 
course  of  this  world,  according  to  the  prince  of  the 
power  of  the  air,  the  spirit  that  now  worketh ' — mark 
the  allusion  to  the  other  words  that  we  have  been 
referring  to — '  in  the  children  of  disobedience.'  So 
there  you  have  the  alternative,  either  'dead  in  tres- 
passes and  sins,'  whilst  living  the  physical  and  the 
intellectual  life,  or  partaking  of  the  life  of  Him  'who 
was  dead,  and  is  alive  for  ever  more';  either  'walking 
according  to  the  course  of  this  world,'  which  is  *  dis- 
obedience '  and  '  wrath,'  or  walking  '  according  to  the 
power  that  worketh  in  us';  either  'putting  on,'  or 
rather  continuing  to  wear,  'the  old  man  which  is 
corrupt  according  to  the  lusts  which  deceive,'  or  'put- 
ting on  the  new  man,  which  according  to  God  is  created 
in  righteousness  and  holiness  and  truth.'  The  choice 
is  before  us.    May  God  help  us  to  choose  aright  1 


GOD'S  INHERITANCE  AND  OURS 

'In  whom    also  we  have  obtained  an  inheritance,  .  .  •  the    earnest    of  our 
Inheritance.'— Eph.  i.  11,  14. 

A  DEWDROP  twinkles  into  green  and  gold  as  the  sun- 
light falls  on  it.  A  diamond  flashes  many  colours  as 
its  facets  catch  the  light.  So,  in  this  context,  the 
Apostle  seems  to  be  haunted  with  that  thought  of 
•inheriting'  and  'inheritance,'  and  he  recurs  to  it 
several  times,  but  sets  it  at  different  angles,  and  it 
flashes  back  different  beauties  of  radiance.  For  the 
words,  which  I  have  wrenched  from  their  context  in 
the  first  of  these  two  verses,  are  more  accurately 
rendered,  as  in  the  Revised  Version,  in  '  whom  also  we 


36        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.i. 

were  made,'  not  'have  obtained' — *an  inheritance.' 
Whose  inheritance?  God's!  The  Christian  community 
is  God's  possession.  Then,  in  my  second  text,  we  have 
the  converse  thought — '  the  earnest  of  our  inheritance. 
What  is  the  Christian's  possession  ?  The  same  God 
whose  possession  is  the  Christian.  So,  then,  there  is  a 
deep  and  a  wonderful  relation  between  the  believing 
soul  and  God,  and  however  different  must  be  the  two 
sides  of  that  relation,  the  resemblance  is  greater  than 
the  difference.  Surely  that  is  the  deepest,  most  blessed, 
and  most  strength-giving  conception  of  the  Christian 
life.  Other  notions  of  it  lay  stress,  and  that  rightly, 
upon  certain  correspondence  between  us  and  God.  My 
faith  corresponds  to  His  faithfulness  and  veracity.  My 
obedience  corresponds  to  His  authority.  My  weakness 
lays  hold  on  His  strength.  My  emptiness  is  replenished 
by  His  fulness.  But  here  we  rise  above  the  region  of 
correspondences  into  that  of  similarity.  In  these  other 
aspects  the  convexity  fits  the  concavity ;  in  this  aspect 
the  two  hemispheres  go  together  and  make  the  com- 
plete globe.  We  possess  God,  and  God  possesses  us,  and 
it  is  the  same  set  of  facts  which  are  set  forth  in  the 
two  thoughts,  '  We  were  made  an  inheritance,  .  .  .  the 
earnest  of  our  inheritance.' 

I.  Now,  then,  let  me  ask  you  to  look  first  at  this 
mutual  possession. 

We  possess  God ;  God  possesses  us.  What  does  that 
mean  ?  Well,  it  means  plainly  and  chiefly  this,  a 
mutual  love.  For  we  all  know — and  many  of  us  thank- 
fully can  bear  witness  to  the  truth  of  it  in  our  earthly 
relationships, — that  the  one  way  by  which  a  human 
spirit  can  possess  a  spirit  is  by  the  sweet  mutual  love 
which  abolishes  '  mine '  and  *  thine,'  and  all  but  abolishes 
•me'  and  'thee.'    And  so  God  sots  little  store  by  the 


V8.11,U]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  AND  OURS  37 

ownership  which  depends  on  divinity  and  creation, 
though,  of  course,  that  relation  brings  with  it  a  duty. 
As  the  old  psalm  has  it,  *It  is  He  that  hath  made  us, 
and  we  are  His  ' ;  still,  such  a  relationship  as  this,  based 
upon  the  connection  that  subsists  between  the  Maker 
and  the  work  of  His  hands,  is  so  purely  external,  and 
harsh,  and  superficial,  that  God  does  not  reckon  it  to 
be  a  possession  at  all. 

You  perhaps  remember  how,  in  the  great  word 
which  underlies  all  these  New  Testament  conceptions 
of  God's  ownership  of  His  people,  viz.  the  charter  that 
constituted  Israel  into  a  nation.  He  said,  *  Ye  shall  be 
unto  Me  a  people  for  a  possession  above  all  nations, 
for  all  the  earth  is  Mine.'  And  yet,  though  that  owner- 
ship and  mastership  extended  over  everything  that 
His  hands  had  made.  He — if  I  might  so  say — contemned 
it,  and  relegated  it  to  a  secondary  position,  and  told 
the  people  that  His  heart  hungered  for  something 
deeper,  more  real,  more  vital  than  such  a  possession, 
and  that  therefore,  just  because  all  the  earth  was  His, 
and  that  was  not  enough  to  satisfy  His  heart,  He  took 
them  and  made  them  a  peculiar  treasure  above  all 
nations.  We  have,  then,  to  think  of  that  great  Divine 
Love  which  possesses  us  when  He  loves  us,  and  when 
we  love  Him. 

But  remember  that  of  this  sweet  commerce  and 
reverberation  of  love  which  constitutes  possession, 
the  origination  must  be  in  His  heart.  'We  love  Him 
because  He  first  loved  us.'  The  mirrors  are  set  all 
round  the  great  hall,  but  their  surfaces  are  cold  and 
lifeless  until  the  great  candelabrum  in  the  centre  is 
lit,  and  then,  from  every  polished  sheet  there  flashes 
back  an  echoing,  answering  light,  and  they  repeat  and 
repeat,  until  you  scarce  can  tell  which  is  the  original 


38        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.i. 

and  which  is  the  reflection.  But  quench  the  centre- 
light,  and  the  daughter-radiances  vanish  into  darkness. 
The  love  on  either  side  is  on  one  side  spontaneous  and 
underived,  and  on  the  other  side  is  secondary  and 
evoked,  but  it  is  love  on  both  sides.  His  possession  of 
us  is,  as  it  were,  the  upper  side,  and  our  possession  of 
Him  is,  as  it  were,  the  underside  of  the  one  golden 
bond.  It  matters  not  whether  you  look  at  the  stream 
with  your  face  to  its  source  or  with  your  face  to  its 
mouth,  the  silvery  plain  is  the  same ;  and  the  deepest 
tie  that  knits  men  to  God  is  the  same  as  the  tie  that 
knits  God  to  men.  There  is  mutual  possession  because 
there  is  mutual  love. 

Then  again,  in  this  same  thought  of  mutual  posses- 
sion there  lies  a  mutual  surrender.  For  to  give  is  the 
life-breath  of  all  true  love,  and  there  is  nothing  which 
the  loving  heart  more  desires  than  to  be  able  to  pour 
itself  out — much  rather  than  any  subordinate  gifts — on 
its  object.  But  that,  if  it  is  one-sided,  is  misery,  and 
only  when  it  is  reciprocal,  is  it  blessed.  God  gives 
Himself  to  us,  as  we  know,  most  chiefly  in  that  un- 
speakable gift  of  His  Son,  and  we  possess  Him  by 
virtue  of  His  self-communication  which  depends  upon 
His  love.  And  then  we  possess  Him,  and  He  possesses 
us,  not  less  by  the  answering  surrender  of  ourselves, 
which  is  the  expression  of  our  love.  No  love  subsists 
if  it  is  only  recipient ;  no  love  subsists  if  it  is  only  com- 
municated. Exports  and  imports  must  both  be  realised 
in  this  sweet  commerce,  and  we  enrich  ourselves  far 
more  by  what  we  give  to  the  Beloved  than  by  what  we 
keep  for  ourselves. 

The  last,  the  hardest  thing  to  surrender,  is  our  own 
wills.  To  give  them  up  by  constraint  is  slavery  that 
degrades.    To  give  them  up  because  we  love  is  a  sacri- 


vs.11,14]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  AND  OURS  39 

fice  which  sanctifies,  even  in  the  lowest  reaches  of 
daily  life.  And  the  love  that  knits  us  to  God  is  not 
invested  with  all  its  blessed  possession  of  Him,  until 
it  has  surrendered  its  will,  and  said,  'Not  as  I  will,  but 
as  Thou  wilt.'  The  traveller  in  the  old  fable  gathered 
his  cloak  around  him  all  the  more  closely,  and  held  it 
the  more  tightly,  because  of  the  tempest  that  blew, 
but  when  the  warm  sunbeams  fell  he  dropped  it.  He 
that  would  coerce  my  will,  stiffens  it  into  rebellion ; 
but  when  a  beloved  one  says,  'Though  I  might  be  much 
bold  to  enjoin  thee,  yet  for  love's  sake  I  rather  beseech,' 
then  yielding  is  blessedness,  and  the  giving  ourselves 
away  is  the  finding  of  God  and  ourselves. 

I  need  not  touch,  in  more  than  a  word,  upon  another 
aspect  of  this  mutual  possession,  brought  into  view 
lovingly  in  many  parts  of  Scripture,  and  that  is  that 
there  is  in  it  not  only  mutual  love  and  mutual  sur- 
render, but  mutual  indwelling,  '  He  that  dwelleth  in 
love  dwelleth  in  God,  and  God  in  him.'  Jesus  Christ 
has  said  the  same  thing  to  us,  '  I  am  the  Yine,  ye  are 
the  branches.  He  that  abideth  in  Me  bringeth  forth 
much  fruit.'  We  dwell  in  God,  possessing  Him ;  He 
dwells  in  us,  possessing  us.  We  dwell  in  God,  being 
possessed  by  Him.  He  dwells  in  us,  being  possessed 
by  us.  And  He  moves  in  the  heart  that  loves,  as  the 
Master  walking  through  His  house,  as  the  divinity  is 
present  in  the  temple,  and  as  the  soul  permeates  the 
body,  and  is  sight  in  the  eye  and  colour  in  the  cheek, 
and  force  in  the  arm,  and  deftness  in  the  finger,  and 
swiftness  in  the  foot.  So  the  indwelling  God  breathes 
through  all  the  capacities,  and  all  the  desires,  and  all 
the  needs  of  the  soul  which  He  inhabits,  and  makes 
them  all  blessed.  The  very  same  set  of  facts — the 
presence  of  a  divine  life  in  the  life  of  the  believing 


40        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  l 

spirit — may  either  be  looked  at  from  the  lower  end,  and 
then  they  are  that  I  possess  God,  and  find  in  Him  the 
nutriment  and  the  stimulus  for  all  my  being,  or  may 
be  looked  at  from  the  upper  end,  that  He  possesses  me 
and  finds  in  me  capacities  and  a  nature  the  emptiness 
of  which  He  fills,  and  organs  which  He  uses.  In  both 
cases  mutual  love,  mutual  surrender,  mutual  inhabita- 
tion, make  up  God's  possession  of  me  and  my  possession 
of  God. 

II.  And  now  let  me  point  you  in  a  very  few  words  to 
some  of  the  plain,  practical  issues  of  this  mutual  pos- 
session. God's  possession  of  us  demands  our  conse- 
cration. '  Ye  are  not  your  own,  ye  are  bought  with  a 
price,'  therefore,  to  live  for  self  is  to  fly  in  the  face  of 
the  very  purpose  of  Christ's  mission  and  of  God's  com- 
munication of  Himself  to  us.  There  are  slaves  who 
run  away  from  their  masters  and  '  deny  the  Lord  that 
bought  them.'  We  do  that  whenever,  being  God's 
slaves,  we  set  up  anything  else  than  His  will  as  our 
law,  or  anything  else  than  His  glory  as  the  aim  of  our 
lives.  To  live  for  self  is  to  die,  to  die  to  self  is  to  live. 
And  the  solemn  obligations  of  that  most  blessed  pos- 
session by  God  of  us  are  as  solemn  as  the  possession  is 
blessed,  and  can  only  be  discharged  when  we  turn  to 
Him,  and  yield  the  whole  control  of  our  nature  to  His 
merciful  hand,  believing  that  He  has  not  only  the  riglit 
to  dispose  of  us,  but  that  His  disposition  of  us  will 
always  coincide  with  our  sanest  conceptions  of  good, 
and  our  wisest  desires  for  happiness.  Yield  yourselves 
to  God,  for  He  has  yielded  Himself  to  you,  and  in  tbe 
yielding  we  realise  our  largest  and  most  blessed  pos- 
session. It  is  a  good  bargain  to  give  myself  and  to  get 
God. 

God's  possession  of  us  not  only  demands  consecration, 


vs.ii,U]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  AND  OURS  41 

but  it  ensures  safety.  Remember  that  great  word, 
•No  man  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  My  Father's 
hand.'  God  is  not  a  careless  owner  who  leaves  His 
treasures  to  be  blown  by  every  wind,  or  filched  by 
every  petty  robber.  He  is  not  like  the  king  of  some 
decrepit  monarchy,  slices  of  whose  territory  his  neigh- 
bours are  for  ever  paring  off  and  annexing.  What 
God  has  God  preserves.  '  He  is  able  to  keep  that  which 
I  have  committed  unto  Him  against  that  day.'  '  They 
are  Mine,  saith  the  Lord,  My  jewels  in  the  day  which 
I  make.'  But  our  security  depends  on  our  consecration. 
'No  man  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  My  Father's 
hand.'  No !  But  you  can  wriggle  yourself  out  of  your 
Father's  hand,  if  you  will.  And  the  security  avails  only 
BO  long  as  you  realise  that  you  belong  to  God,  and  are 
living  not  for  yourself. 

Possessing  God  we  are  rich.  There  is  nothing  that 
is  truly  our  wealth  which  remains  outside  of  us,  and 
can  be  separated  from  us.  '  Shrouds  have  no  pockets,' 
says  the  Spanish  proverb.  '  His  glory  shall  not  descend 
after  him,'  says  the  grim  psalm.  But  if  God  possesses 
me  He  is  not  going  to  let  His  treasures  be  lost  in  the 
grave.  And  if  I  possess  Him  then  I  shall  pass  through 
death  as  a  beam  of  light  does  through  some  denser 
medium — a  little  refracted  indeed,  but  not  broken  up ; 
and  I  shall  carry  with  me  all  my  wealth  to  begin 
another  world  with.  And  that  is  more  than  you  can 
do  with  the  money  that  you  make  here.  If  you  have 
God,  you  have  the  capital  to  commence  a  new  condition 
of  things  beyond  the  grave. 

And  so  that  mutual  possession  is  the  real  pledge  of 
immortal  life,  for  nothing  can  be  more  incredible  than 
that  a  soul  which  has  risen  to  have  God  for  its  very 
own,  and  has  bowed  itself  to  accept  God's  ownership 


42        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  i. 

of  it,  can  be  affected  by  such  a  transient  and  physical 
incident  as  what  we  call  death.  We  rise  to  the  assur- 
ance of  immortality  because  we  have  an  inheritance 
which  is  God  Himself.  And  in  that  inexhaustible 
Inheritance  there  lies  the  guarantee  that  we  shall  live 
while  He  lives,  because  He  lives,  and  until  we  have 
incorporated  into  our  lives  all  the  majesty  and  the 
purity  and  the  wisdom  and  the  power  that  belong  to 
us  because  they  are  God's. 

But  we  have  to  notice  the  two  words  that  lie  at 
the  beginning  of  our  first  text — */n  ivhom  we  were 
made  an  inheritance.'  That  opens  up  the  whole 
question  of  the  means  by  which  this  mutual  pos- 
session becomes  possible  for  us  men.  Jesus  Christ 
has  died.  That  breaks  the  bondage  under  which 
the  whole  world  is  held.  For  the  true  slavery  which 
interferes  with  the  free  service  and  the  full  possession 
of  God  is  the  slavery  of  self  and  sin.  Jesus  Christ  has 
died.  •  If  the  Son  make  you  free  ye  shall  be  free  indeed.' 
That  great  sacrifice  not  only  '  breaks  the  power  of 
cancelled  sin,'  but  it  also  moves  the  heart,  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  truly  accept  it,  to  the  love  and 
the  surrender  which  make  the  mutual  possession  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking.  And  so  it  is  in  Him 
that  we  become  an  Inheritance,  that  God  comes  to  His 
rights  in  regard  to  each  of  us.  And  it  is  in  Him  that 
we,  trusting  the  Son,  have  the  inheritance  for  ours, 
and  *  are  heirs  with  God,  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ.' 
So,  dear  friends,  if  we  vrould  *be  meet  for  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  saints  in  light,'  we  must  unite  ourselves  to 
that  Lord  by  faith,  and  through  Him  and  faith  in  Him, 
we  shall  receive  *  the  remission  of  sins  and  inheritance 
among  all  them  that  are  sanctified.' 


THE  EARNEST  AND  THE  INHERITANCE 

'The  earnest  of  our  inheritance,  until  the  redemption  of  the  purchased  posses- 
eion.'— Eph.  i.  14. 

I  HAVE  dealt  with  a  portion  of  this  verse  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  fragment  of  another  in  this  chap- 
ter. I  tried  to  show  you  how  much  the  idea  of 
the  mutual  possession  of  God  by  the  believing 
soul,  and  of  the  believing  soul  by  God,  was 
present  to  the  Apostle's  thoughts  in  this  context. 
These  two  ideas  are  brought  into  close  juxtaposition 
in  the  verse  before  us,  for,  as  you  will  see  if  you  use 
the  Revised  Version,  the  latter  clause  is  there  rightly 
paraphrased  by  the  addition  of  a  supplement,  and 
reads  *  until  the  redemption  of  God's  own  possession.' 
So  that  in  the  first  clause  we  have  '  our  inheritance,' 
and  in  the  second  we  have  '  God's  possession.'  This 
double  idea,  however,  has  appended  to  it  in  this  verse 
some  very  striking  and  important  thoughts.  The  pos- 
session of  both  sides  is  regarded  as  incomplete,  for 
what  we  have  is  the  '  earnest '  of  the  '  inheritance,'  and 
'  God's  own  possession '  has  yet  to  be  '  redeemed,'  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  that  word,  at  some  point  in  the  future. 
An  '  earnest '  is  a  fraction  of  an  inheritance,  or  of  a 
sum  hereafter  to  be  paid,  and  is  the  guarantee  and 
pledge  that  the  whole  shall  one  day  be  handed  over  to 
the  man  who  has  received  the  foretaste  of  it  in  the 
*  earnest.'  The  soldier's  shilling,  the  ploughman's 
•arles,'  the  clod  of  earth  and  tuft  of  grass  which,  in 
some  forms  of  transfer,  were  handed  over  to  the  pur- 
chaser, were  all  the  guarantee  that  the  rest  was  going 
to  come.  So  the  great  future  is  sealed  to  us  by  the 
small  present  and  the  experiences  of  the  Christian  life 


44       EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.i. 

to-day,  imperfect,  fragmentary,  defective  as  they  are, 
are  the  best  prophecy  and  the  most  glorious  pledge 
of  that  great  to-morrow.  The  same  law  of  continuity 
which,  in  application  to  our  characters,  and  our  work, 
and  our  daily  life,  makes  '  to-morrow  as  this  day,  and 
much  more  abundant,'  in  its  application  to  the  future 
life  makes  the  life  here  its  parent,  and  the  life  yonder 
the  prolongation  and  the  raising  to  its  highest  power, 
of  what  is  the  main  though  often  impeded  tendency 
and  direction  of  the  present.  The  earnest  of  the  '  in- 
heritance '  is  the  pledge  until  the  full  redemption  of 
*  God's  own  possession.'  I  wish,  then,  to  draw  attention 
to  these  additional  thoughts  which  are  here  attached 
to  the  main  idea  with  which  we  were  dealing  in  the 
last  sermon. 

I.  And  I  ask  you  to  look  with  me,  first,  at  the  incom- 
pleteness of  the  present  possession. 

I  tried  to  show  in  my  last  sermon  how  those  great 
thoughts  of  God's  having  us,  and  our  having  God, 
rested  upon  the  three  ideas  of  mutual  love,  mutual 
communication,  and  mutual  indwelling.  On  His  side 
the  love,  the  impartation,  the  indwelling,  are  all  per- 
fect. On  our  side  they  are  incomplete,  broken,  defec- 
tive; and,  therefore,  the  incompleteness  on  our  side 
hinders  both  God's  possession  of  us,  and  our  possession 
of  Him ;  so  that  we  have  but  the  *  earnest '  and  not  the 
'  inheritance.'  That  is  to  say,  the  ownership  may  be 
perfect  in  idea,  but  in  realisation  it  is  imperfect. 

And  then,  if  we  turn  to  the  word  in  the  other  clause, 
'  the  redemption  of  the  purchased  possession,'  that 
suggests  the  incompleteness  with  which  God  as  yet 
owns  us.  For  though  the  initial  act  of  redeeming  ia 
complete,  yet  redemption  is  a  process,  and  not  an  act. 
And  we  '  are  having '  it,  as  the  Apostle  says  in  another 


V.  U]    EARNEST  AND  INHERITANCE       4,5 

place  very  emphatically,  in  continual  and  growing 
experience.  The  estate  has  heen  acquired,  but  has  not 
yet  been  fully  subdued.  For  there  are  tribes  in  the 
jungles  and  in  the  hills  who  still  hold  out  against  the 
reign  of  Him  who  has  won  it  for  Himself.  And  bo 
seeing  that  the  redemption  in  its  fulness  is  relegated 
to  some  point  in  the  future,  towards  which  we  are 
progressively  approximating,  and  seeing  that  the  best 
that  can  be  said  about  the  Christian  experience  here  is 
that  we  have  an  '  earnest  of  the  inheritance,'  we  must 
recognise  the  incompleteness  to-day  of  our  possession 
of  God,  and  of  God's  possession  of  us. 

That  is  a  matter  of  experience.  We  know  that  only 
too  well.  '  I  have  God ' — have  I  ?  I  have  a  drop  at  the 
bottom  of  a  too  often  unsteadily  held  and  spilling  cup, 
and  the  great  ocean  rolls  unfathomable  and  boundless 
at  my  feet.  How  partial,  how  fragmentary,  how 
clouded  with  doubts  and  blank  ignorance,  how  inter- 
mittent, and,  alas !  rare,  is  our  knowledge  of  Him.  ^.Ve 
sometimes  go  down  our  streets  between  tall  houses, 
walking  in  their  shadow,  and  now  and  then  there  is  a 
cross  street  down  which  a  blaze  of  sunshine  comes,  and 
when  we  reach  it,  and  the  houses  fall  back,  we  see  the 
blue  beyond.  But  we  go  on,  and  we  are  in  the  shadow 
again.  And  so  our  earthly  lives  are  passed,  to  a  largo 
extent,  beneath  the  shade  of  the  grimy  buildings  that 
we  ourselves  have  put  up,  and  which  shut  out  heaven 
from  us,  and  only  now  and  then  a  slanting  beam  comes 
through  some  opening,  and  carries  wistful  thoughts 
and  longings  into  the  Empyrean  beyond.  And  how 
feeble  our  faith,  and  how  little  of  His  power  comes 
into  our  hearts,  and  how  little  of  the  joy  of  the  Lord  is 
realised  in  our  daily  experience  we  all  know,  and  it  is 
sometimes  good  for  us  to  force  ourselves  to  feel  it  is 


40       EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIAKS  [ch-l 

but  an  '  earnest '  of  the  *  inheritance '  that  the  best  of 
us  has. 

'  God  has  us.'  Has  He  ?  Has  He  my  will,  which  sub- 
mits itself,  and  finds  joy  in  submitting  itself,  to  Him  ? 
How  many  competitors  are  there  for  my  love  which 
come  in  in  front  of  Him,  and  we  '  cannot  get  at  Him 
for  the  press ' !  How  many  other  motives  are  dominant 
in  our  lives,  and  how  often  we  wrench  ourselves  away 
from  our  submission  to  Him,  and  try  to  set  up  a  little 
dominion  of  our  own,  and  say,  'Our  lives  are  ours; 
who  is  lord  over  us?'  Oh,  brethren !  we  have  God  if 
we  are  Christians  at  all,  and  God  has  us.  But  alas ! 
surely  all  honest  experience  tells  us  that  there  are 
awful  gaps  in  the  circle,  and  that  our  possession  of 
Him,  and  His  possession  of  us,  are  wofuUy  incom- 
plete. 

Now,  let  me  remind  you  that  this  incompleteness  is 
mainly  our  own  fault.  Of  course,  I  know  that  for  the 
absolute  completeness,  either  of  my  possession  of  God 
or  of  His  of  me,  I  must  pass  from  out  this  world,  and 
enter  upon  another  stage  and  manner  of  being.  But 
it  is  not  being  in  the  flesh,  but  it  is  being  dominated  by 
the  flesh,  that  is  the  reason  for  the  incompleteness  of 
our  mutual  possession.  And  it  is  not  being  in  the 
world,  but  it  is  being  seduced  and  tyrannised  over  by 
the  influx  of  worldly  desires  and  thoughts,  surging 
into  our  hearts,  that  drives  God  from  out  of  our  hearts, 
and  draws  us  away  from  the  sweet  security  of  being 
possessed  by,  and  living  close  to.  Him.  Death  does  a 
great  deal  for  a  man  in  advancing  him  in  the  scale  of 
being,  and  in  changing  the  centre  of  gravity,  as  it  were, 
of  this  life.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  any- 
thing in  death,  or  beyond  it,  will  so  alter  the  set  and 
direction  of  his  soul  as  that  it  will  load  him  into  that 


T.  14]    EARNEST  AND  INHERITANCE       47 

possession  of  God,  and  being  possessed  by  Him,  which 
he  has  not  here.  There  are  many  of  us  who,  if  we 
were  to  die  this  instant,  would  no  more  have  God  for 
ours,  or  belong  to  God,  than  we  do  now.  It  is  our  fault 
if  the  circle  is  broken  into  so  many  segments,  if  the 
moments  of  mutual  love,  coiTimunion,  and  indwelling 
are  so  rare  and  interrupted  in  our  lives.  The  incom- 
pleteness which  is  due  to  our  earthly  condition  is 
nothing  as  compared  with  the  incompleteness  which  is 
due  to  our  own  sin. 

But  this  incompleteness  is  one  which  may  be  pro- 
gressively diminished,  and  we  may  be  tending  moment 
by  moment,  and  year  by  year,  nearer  and  nearer,  and 
ever  nearer,  to  the  unreachable  ideal  of  the  entire 
possession  of,  and  being  possessed  by,  our  God.  There 
is  a  continual  process  of  redemption  of  'God's  own 
possession  '  going  on  if  a  Christian  man  is  true  to  him- 
self and  to  that  Divine  Spirit  which  is  the  '  earnest ' 
of  the  'inheritance.'  Mark  that  in  my  text,  as  it 
stands  in  our  Bibles,  and  reads  '  until  the  redemption,' 
there  seems  to  be  merely  a  pointing  onwards  to  a 
future  epoch,  but  that,  in  the  more  accurate  rendering 
which  you  will  find  in  the  Revised  Version,  instead  of 
'until'  we  have  'unto,'  and  that  teaches  us  that  the 
Divine  Spirit,  which  in  one  aspect  is  the  '  earnest  of  the 
inheritance,'  is  also  operating  upon  men's  hearts  and 
minds  so  as  to  bring  about  the  gradual  completion  of 
the  process  of  redemption. 

So,  dear  brethren,  seeing  that  by  our  own  faults  the 
possession  is  incomplete,  and  seeing  that  in  the  incom- 
pleteness there  is  given  to  each  of  us,  if  we  rightly  use 
it,  a  mighty  power  which  is  working  ever  towards  the 
completion,  it  becomes  us  day  by  day  to  draw  into  our 
spirits  more  and  more  of  that  divine  influence,  and  to 


48        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.i. 

let  it  work  more  fully  upon  the  sins  and  faults  which, 
far  more  than  the  body  of  flesh,  or  the  connection  with 
the  world  which  it  brings  about,  are  the  reasons  for 
the  incompleteness  of  the  possession.  We  have,  if  we 
are  wise,  the  task  to  discharge  of  daily  enclosing,  so  to 
speak,  more  and  more  of  the  broad  land  which  is  all 
given  over  to  us  for  our  inheritance,  but  of  which  only 
so  much  as  we  fence  in  and  cultivate,  and  make  our 
own,  is  our  own. 

The  incompleteness  is  progressively  completed,  and 
it  is  our  work  as  much  as  God's  work  to  complete  it. 
For  though  in  our  text  that  redemption  is  conceived  of 
as  a  divine  act,  it  is  not  an  act  in  which  we  are  but 
passive.  The  air  goes  into  the  lungs,  and  that  oxy- 
genates the  blood,  but  the  lung  has  to  inflate  if  the  air 
is  to  penetrate  all  its  vesicles.  And  so  the  Spirit  which 
seals  us  unto  the  redemption  of  the  possession  has  to 
be  received,  held,  diffused  throughout,  and  utilised  by 
our  own  effort. 

11.  Now,  secondly,  notice  the  certainty  of  the  com- 
pletion of  the  incompleteness. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  clod  of  earth  and  the 
handful  of  grass,  the  servant's  wages,  the  soldier's 
shilling,  are  all  guarantees  that  the  whole  of  the  in- 
heritance or  of  the  pay  will  be  forthcoming  in  due 
time.  And  so  there  emerges  from  this  consideration 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  as  the  '  earnest,'  the  thought  that 
the  present  experiences  of  a  Christian  soul  are  the 
surest  proofs,  and  the  irrefragable  guarantees,  of  that 
perfect  future.  We  ask  for  proofs  of  a  future  lifi'. 
They  may  be  very  useful  in  certain  states  of  mind,  and 
to  certain  phases  of  opinion,  but  as  it  seems  to  me,  far 
deeper  than  the  region  of  logical  understanding,  and 
far  more  conclusive  than  anything  that  can  be  cast 


T.  U]    EARNEST  AND  INHERITANCE      49 

into  the  form  of  a  syllogism,  is  the  experience  of  a  soul 
which  knows  that  God  is  its,  and  that  it  is  God's. 
•I  think,  therefore,  I  am,'  said  the  philosopher.  •! 
have  God ;  therefore  I  shall  always  be,'  says  the  Chris- 
tian. Whilst  that  evidence  is  available  o.jly  for 
himself,  it  is  absolutely  conclusive  for  himself.  And 
the  fact  that  it  does  spring  in  the  hearts  which  are 
purest,  because  nearest  God,  is  no  small  matter  to  be 
considered  by  men  who  may  be  groping  for  proofs  of  a 
life  to  come.  If  the  selected  moments  of  the  purest 
devotion  here  on  earth  bring  with  them  inevitably  the 
confidence  of  the  unending  continuance  of  that  com- 
munion, then  those  who  do  not  believe  in  that  future 
have  to  account  for  the  fact  as  best  they  may.  As  for 
us  who  do  know,  though  brokenly,  and  by  reason  of 
our  own  faults  very  imperfectly,  what  it  is  to  have 
God,  and  bo  had  by  Him,  we  do  not  need  to  travel  out 
to  dim  and  doubtful  analogies,  nor  do  we  even  depend 
entirely  upon  the  fact  of  a  risen  Christ  ascended  to  the 
heavens,  and  living  evermore,  but  we  can  say,  '  I  am 
God's  ;  God  is  mine,  and  death  has  no  power  over  such 
a  mutual  possession.* 

The  very  incompleteness  adds  strength  to  the  assur- 
ance, for  the  facts  of  the  Christian  life  are  such  as  to 
demand,  both  by  its  greatness  and  by  its  littleness,  by 
its  loftiness  and  by  its  lapses  into  lowliness,  by  the 
floodtide  of  devotion  that  sometimes  sweeps  rejoicingly 
over  the  mud-shoals  and  by  the  ebb  that  sometimes 
leaves  them  all  black  and  festering,  a  future  life 
wherein  what  was  manifestly  meant  to  be,  and  capable 
of  being,  dominant,  supreme,  but  was  hampered  and 
hindered  here,  shall  reach  its  full  development,  and 
where  the  plant  that  was  dwarfed  in  this  alien  soil, 
transplanted  into  that  higher  house,  shall  blossom  and 

i) 


50       EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  i. 

bear  immortal  fruits.  The  new  moon  has  a  ragged 
edge,  and  each  of  the  protrusions  and  concavities  are 
the  prophecy  of  the  perfect  orb  which  shall  ere  long 
fill  the  night  with  calm  light  from  its  silvery  shield. 
The  incompleteness  prophesies  completion. 

And  if  the  incompleteness  is  so  blessed,  what  will  the 
completeness  be?  A  shilling  to  a  million  pounds. 
Knowledge  which  is  partial  and  intermittent,  like  the 
twilight,  as  contrasted  with  the  blaze  of  noonday, 
Joy  like  winter  sunshine  as  compared  with  the  warmth 
and  heat  of  the  midday  sun  at  the  zenith  on  the 
Equator.  The  '  earnest '  of  (lie  '  inheritance '  is  wealth  ; 
the  inheritance  itself  shall  be  unaccountable  treasure. 

III.  And  so,  lastly,  a  word  about  the  completion  of 
the  possession. 

The  *  earnest '  is  always  of  the  same  nature  as,  and 
a  part  of  the  '  inheritance.'  Therefore,  since  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  the  earnest,  the  conclusion  is  plain,  that  the 
inheritance  is  nothing  less  than  God  Himself.  Heaven 
is  to  possess  God,  and  to  be  possessed  by  Him.  That 
is  the  highest  conception  that  we  can  form  of  that 
future  life.  And  it  is  sorely  to  be  lamented  that  sub- 
sidiary conceptions,  which  are  all  useful  in  their 
subordinate  places,  have,  by  popular  Christianity,  been 
far  too  much  elevated  into  being  the  central  blessed- 
ness of  that  future  heaven.  It  is  all  right  that  we 
should  cast  the  things  which  it  is  '  impossible  for  men 
to  utter '  into  the  shape  of  symbols  which  may  a  little 
relieve  the  necessary  inarticulateness ;  but  golden 
streets,  and  crystal  pavements,  and  white  robes,  and 
golden  palms,  and  all  such  representations,  are  but  the 
dimmest  shadows  of  that  which  they  intend  to  express, 
and  do  often,  as  is  the  vice  of  all  symbols,  obscure. 
We  can  only  conceive  of  a  condition  of  which  we  have 


T.U]    EARNEST  AND  INHERITANCE       51 

had  no  experience,  hy  the  two  ways  of  symbolism  and 
of  negation.  We  can  say,  '  There  shall  be  no  night 
there ;  there  shall  be  no  curse  there ;  they  need  no 
candle,  neither  light  of  the  sun ;  they  rest  not  day  nor 
night;  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow, 
nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain,  for 
the  former  things  are  passed  away.'  But  all  these 
negations,  like  their  sister  symbols,  are  but  surface 
work,  and  we  have  to  go  deeper  than  all  of  them. 

But  to  possess  God,  and  to  be  possessed  by  Him,  and 
in  either  case  fully,  perfectly  in  degree,  progressively 
in  measure,  eternal  in  duration,  is  the  Heaven  of 
heaven. 

If  that  is  the  true  conception  of  the  inheritance,  then 
it  follows  indubitably  that  such  a  Heaven  is  not  for 
everybody.  God  would  fain  have  us  all  for  His  there, 
as  He  would  fain  have  each  of  us  here  and  now,  but  it 
may  not  be.  There  are  creatures  w^hich  live  beneath 
stones,  and  if  you  turn  their  coverings  up,  and  let  light 
fall  on  them,  it  kills  them.  And  there  are  men  who 
have  refused  to  belong  to  God  here,  and  refused  to 
claim  their  portion  in  Hira,  and  such  cannot  possess 
that  true  Heaven  which  is  God  Himself.  Then,  if  its 
possession  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  divine  volition, 
giving  a  man  what  he  is  not  capable  of  receiving,  it 
plainly  follows  that  the  preparation  must  begin  now 
and  here  by  the  incomplete  possession  of  which  my 
text  is  discoursing.  And  the  way  of  such  preparation 
is  plain.  The  context  says :  '  In  whom,  after  that  ye 
believed,  ye  were  sealed  with  that  Holy  Spirit  of 
promise.'  Faith  in  Jc^us  Christ,  and  trust  in  Him  and 
His  work  as  my  forgiveness,  my  acceptance,  my  changed 
nature  and  heart — is  the  condition  of  being  'sealed' 
with  that  Spirit  whose  sealing  of  us  is  the  condition  of 


52        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  l 

our  love,  our  surrender,  and  mutual  indwelling,  which 
are  our  possession  of  God  and  being  possessed  by  Him, 
and  are  the  condition  of  our  future  complete  possession 
of  the  *  inheritance.'  We  must  begin  with  faith  in 
Christ.  Then  comes  the  sealing,  then  comes  the  earnest, 
then  comes  the  growing  redemption,  and  in  due  time 
shall  come  the  fulness  of  the  possession.  'Believe  on 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ'  if  thou  wouldst  have  the 
earnest,  whilst  thou  dost  tabernacle  in  tents  in  the 
wilderness  of  Time,  and  if  thou  wouldst  have  the  in- 
heritance when  thou  Grossest  the  flood  into  the  goodly 
land. 


THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CALLING 

"That  ye  may  know  what  Is  the  hope  of  His  calling.'— Eph.  L  18. 

A  man's  prayers  for  others  are  a  very  fair  thermometer 
of  his  own  religious  condition.  What  he  asks  for  them 
will  largely  indicate  what  he  thinks  best  for  himself ; 
and  how  ho  asks  it  will  show  the  firmness  of  his  own 
faith  and  the  fervour  of  his  own  feeling.  There  is 
nothing  colder  than  the  intercession  of  a  cold  Christian  ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  in  no  part  of  the  fervid  Apostle 
Paul's  writings  do  his  words  come  more  winged  and 
fast,  or  his  spirit  glow  with  greater  fervour  of  affec- 
tion and  holy  desire  than  in  his  petitions  for  his 
friends. 

In  that  great  prayer,  of  which  my  text  forms  a  part, 
we  have  his  response  to  the  good  news  that  had 
reached  him  of  the  steadfastness  in  faith  and  abun- 
dance in  love  of  these  Ephesian  Christians.  As  the 
best  expression  of  his  glad  love  he  asks  for  them  the 
knowledge  of  three  things,  of  which  my  text  is  the 


T.18]    THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CALLING        53 

first,  and  the  other  two  are  the  *  riches  of  the  glory 
of  the  inheritance '  and  '  the  exceeding  greatness  of 
God's  power.' 

Now  if  we  take  the  'hope'  in  my  text,  as  is  often 
done,  as  meaning  the  thing  hoped  for,  there  seems  to 
be  but  a  shadowy  difference  between  the  first  and 
the  second  of  these  subjects  of  the  apostolic  petition. 
Whereas,  if  we  take  it  as  meaning,  not  the  object  on 
which  the  emotion  is  fixed,  but  the  emotion  itself, 
then  all  the  three  stand  in  a  natural  gradation  and 
connection.  We  have,  first,  the  Christian  emotion ; 
then  the  object  upon  which  it  is  fixed ;  '  the  glory 
of  the  inheritance';  then  the  power  by  which  the 
latter  is  brought  and  the  former  is  realised.  We  shall 
consider  the  second  and  third  of  these  petitions  in 
following  sermons.  For  the  present  I  confine  myself 
to  this  first,  the  Apostle's  great  desire  for  Christians 
who  had  already  made  considerable  progress  in  the 
Christian  life,  '  that  they  may  know,'  by  experiencing 
it, '  what  is  the  hope  of  His  calling.' 

I.  Now  the  first  thought  that  these  words  suggest 
to  me  is  this,  that  the  Christian  hope  is  based  upon  the 
facts  of  Christian  experience. 

What  does  the  Apostle  mean  by  naming  it '  the  hope 
of  his  calling'?  He  means  this,  that  the  great  act 
of  the  divine  mercy  revealed  to  us  in  the  Gospel,  by 
which  God  summons  and  invites  men  to  Himself,  will 
naturally  produce  in  those  who  have  yielded  to  it  a 
hope  of  immortal  and  perfect  life.  Because  God  has 
called  men,  therefore  the  man  who  has  yielded  to  the 
call  may  legitimately,  and  must,  if  he  is  to  do  his  duty, 
cherish  such  a  hope.  It  is  clear  enough  that  this  is 
BO,  inasmuch  as,  unless  there  be  a  heaven  of  complete- 
ness for  us  who  have  yielded  to  the  summons  and 


54        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  i. 

obeyed  the  invitation  of  God  in  His  Gospel,  His  whole 
procedure  is  enigmatical  and  bewildering.  The  fact  of 
the  call  is  inexplicable  ;  the  cost  of  it  is  no  less  so.  It 
was  not  worth  while  for  God  to  make  the  world  unless 
with  respect  to  another  which  was  to  follow.  It  is  still 
less  worth  His  while  to  redeem  the  world  if  the  results 
of  that  redemption,  as  they  are  exhibited  here  and  now, 
and  as  they  are  capable  of  being  exhibited  in  this 
present  condition  of  things,  are  all  that  are  to  flow 
from  it.  It  was  not  worth  Christ's  while  to  die,  it  was 
not  worth  God's  while  to  send  His  Son,  there  was  no 
sense  or  consistency  in  that  great  voice  that  echoes 
from  heaven,  calling  us  to  love  and  serve  Him,  unless, 
beyond  the  jangling  contradictions,  and  imperfect 
attainments,  and  foiled  aspirations,  and  fragmentary 
faith,  and  broken  services  of  earth,  there  be  a  region 
of  completeness  where  all  that  was  tendency  here  shall 
have  become  effect;  and  all  that  was  but  in  germ  here, 
and  sorely  frostbitten  by  tbe  ungenial  climate,  and 
shrivelled  by  the  foul  vapours  in  the  atmosphere, 
shall  blossom  and  burgeon  into  eternal  life.  The 
Christian  life,  as  it  is  to-day,  in  its  attainments  and 
imperfections,  is  at  once  the  witness  of  the  reality  of 
the  power  that  has  produced  it,  and  clamantly  calls 
for  a  sphere  and  environment  in  which  that  power 
shall  be  able  to  produce  the  effects  which  it  is  capable 
of  producing. 

God  is  '  not  a  man  that  He  should  lie,  nor  the  son 
of  man  that  He  should  repent.'  Men  begin  grand 
designs  which  never  get  further  than  the  paper  that 
they  are  drawn  on;  or  they  build  a  porch,  and  then 
they  are  bankrupt,  or  change  their  minds,  or  die,  and 
the  palace  remains  unrealised,  and  all  that  pass  by 
mock  and    say,  'This  man   began  to  build  and  was 


V.  18]    THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CALLING        55 

not  able  to  finish.'  But  God's  designs  are  certain  of 
accomplishment.  Unless  we  are  to  be  reduced  to 
a  state  of  utter  intellectual  bewilderment  and  con- 
fusion, and  forgo  our  belief  in  His  veracity  and 
resources  to  execute  His  designs,  the  design  that  lies 
in  the  calling  must  needs  lead  on  to  the  realm  of 
perfectness.  If  we  consider  the  agent  by  which  it 
is  effected,  even  the  risen  Christ ;  if  we  consider 
the  cost  at  which  it  was  accomplished,  even  the 
death  on  the  Cross,  the  mission  of  His  Son,  and 
His  assumption  of  the  limitations  of  an  incarnate 
life ;  if  we  consider  the  manifest  potencies  of  the 
power  that  He  has  brought  into  operation  in  the 
present  Christian  life ;  and  if  we  consider,  side  by 
side  with  these,  the  stark,  staring  contradictions  and 
as  manifest  inevitable  limitations  of  the  effects  of  that 
power.  His  calling  carries  in  its  depths  the  assurance 
that  what  He  means  shall  be  done,  that  Jesus  Christ 
has  not  died  in  vain,  that  He  has  not  ascended  to 
fill  a  solitary  throne,  but  is  the  Firstfruits  of  a  great 
harvest ;  and  that  we  shall  one  day  be  all  that  it 
is  in  the  gospel  of  our  salvation  to  make  us,  un- 
hindered by  the  limitations  and  unthwarted  by  the 
antagonisms  of  this  poor  human  life  of  ours.  Unless 
there  be  a  heaven  in  which  all  desires  shall  be  satis- 
fied, all  evils  removed,  all  good  perfected,  all  ragged 
trees  made  symmetrical  and  full-grown,  and  all  souls 
that  love  Him  radiant  with  His  own  perfect  image, 
then  the  light  that  seeii\od  a  light  from  heaven  is 
the  most  delusive  of  all  the  marsh-fires  of  earth,  and 
nothing  in  the  illusions  of  sense  or  of  men's  cunning 
is  so  cruel  or  so  tragic  as  the  calling  that  seemed  to  be 
the  voice  of  God,  and  summoned  us  to  a  heaven  which 
was  only  a  dream. 


56        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.l 

11.  And  so,  secondly,  notice  how  this  hope  of  our 
text  is  in  some  sense  the  very  topstone  of  the  Christian 
life. 

Paul  has  heard,  concerning  these  people  in  Ephesus, 
of  their  faith  and  love.  And  because  he  has  heard  of 
these,  therefore  he  brings  this  prayer.  These  two — the 
faith  which  apprehends  the  manifestation  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  which  that  faith  produces 
in  the  heart  that  accepts  the  revelation  of  the  infinite 
love — are  crowned  by,  and  are  imperfect  without,  and 
naturally  lead  on  to  the  brightness  of  this  great  hope, 
Faith — the  reliance  of  the  spirit  upon  the  veracity 
of  the  revealing  God — gives  hope  its  contents;  for 
the  Christian  hope  is  not  spun  out  of  your  own 
imaginations,  nor  is  it  the  mere  making  objective 
in  a  future  life  of  the  unfulfilled  desires  of  this 
disappointing  present,  but  it  is  the  recognition  by 
the  trusting  spirit  of  the  great  and  starry  truths 
that  are  flashed  upon  it  by  the  Word  of  God.  Faith 
draws  back  the  curtain,  and  Hope  gazes  into  the 
supernal  abysses.  My  hope,  if  it  be  anything  else 
than  the  veriest  will-o'-the-wisp  and  delusion,  is  the 
answer  of  my  heart  to  the  revealed  truth  of  God. 

Similarly  the  love  which  flows  from  faith  not  only 
necessarily  leads  on  to  the  expectation  of  union  being 
perfected  with  the  object  of  its  warm  affection,  but 
also  so  works  upon  the  heart  and  character  as  that 
the  false  and  seducing  loves  which  draw  away,  like 
some  sluice  upon  a  river,  the  current  of  life  from  its 
true  channel,  are  all  sanctified  and  no  more  hinder 
hope.  Loving,  we  hope  for  that  which,  unless  we 
loved,  would  not  draw  desires  nor  yield  foretastes  of 
sweetness  which,  like  perfumed  oil,  feed  the  pure  flame 
of  hope. 


r.  18]    THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CALLING        57 

The  triad  of  Christian  graces  is  completed  by  Hope. 
Without  her  fair  presence  something  is  wanting  to  the 
completeness  of  her  elder  sisters.  The  great  Cam- 
panile at  Florence,  though  it  be  inlaid  with  glowing 
marbles,  and  fair  sculptures,  and  perfect  in  its  beauty, 
wants  the  gilded,  skyward-pointing  pinnacle  of  its  top- 
most pyramid  ;  and  so  it  stands  incomplete.  And  thus 
faith  and  love  need  for  their  crowning  and  completion 
the  topmost  grace  that  looks  up  to  the  sky,  and  is  sure 
of  a  mansion  there. 

Brethren,  our  Christianity  is  wofully  imperfect  un- 
less faith  and  love  find  their  acme,  their  outstretching 
completion,  in  this  Christian  hope.  Do  you  seek  to 
complete  your  faith  and  love  by  a  living  hope  full  of 
immortality  ? 

III.  Thirdly,  notice  how  this  hope  is  an  all-important 
element  in  the  Christian  life. 

The  Apostle  asks  for  it  as  the  best  thing  that  can 
befall  these  Ephesian  Christians,  as  the  one  thing  that 
they  need  to  make  them  strong  and  good  and  blessed. 
There  are  many  other  aspects  of  desire  for  them 
which  appear  in  other  parts  of  this  letter.  But  here 
all  Christian  progress  is  regarded  as  being  held  in 
solution  and  included  in  vigorous  hope. 

Why  is  the  activity  of  hope  thus  important  for 
Christian  life  ?  Because  it  stimulates  effort,  calms 
sorrows,  takes  the  fascination  out  of  temptations, 
supplies  a  new  aim  for  life  and  a  new  measure  for 
the  things  of  time  and  sense. 

If  we  lived,  as  we  ought  to  live,  in  the  habitual 
apprehension  of  the  great  future  awaiting  all  real 
Christians,  would  it  not  change  the  whole  aspect  of 
life  ?  The  world  is  very  big  when  it  is  looked  at  from 
any  point  upon  it^  surface;  but  suppoa©  it  cpiild  ]bo 


58        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  i. 

looked  at  from  the  central  sun,  how  large  would  it 
appear  then  ?  We  can  shift  our  station  in  like  fashion, 
and  then  we  get  the  true  measure  at  once  of  the  in- 
significance and  of  the  greatness  of  life.  This  world 
means  nothing  worthy,  except  as  an  introduction  to 
another.  Not  that  thereby  there  will  follow  in  any 
wise  man  contempt  for  the  present,  for  the  very  same 
reference  to  the  future  which  dwarfs  the  greatnesses 
and  dwindles  the  sorrows,  and  almost  extinguishes 
the  dazzling  lights  of  this  present,  does  also  lift  it  to 
its  true  significance  and  importance.  It  is  the  vesti- 
bule of  that  future,  and  that  future  is  conditioned 
throughout  by  the  results  of  the  few  years  that  we 
live  here.  An  apprenticeship  may  be  a  very  poor 
matter,  looked  at  in  itself;  and  the  boy  may  say 
What  is  the  use  of  my  working  at  all  these  trivial 
things  ?  but,  since  it  is  apprenticeship,  it  is  worth  while 
to  attend  to  every  trifle  in  its  course,  for  attention 
to  them  will  affect  the  standing  of  the  man  all  his 
days. 

Here  and  now  we  are  getting  ready  for  the  great 
workshop  yonder  ;  learning  the  trick  of  the  tools,  and 
how  to  use  our  fingers  and  our  powers,  and,  when  the 
schooling  is  done,  we  shall  be  set  to  nobler  work,  and 
receive  ample  wages  for  the  years  here.  Because  that 
great  '  to-morrow  will  be  as  this  day '  of  earthly  life, 
'  and  much  more  abundant,'  therefore  it  is  no  trifle  to 
work  amongst  the  trifles ;  and  nothing  is  small  which 
may  tell  on  our  condition  yonder.  The  least  deflec- 
tion from  the  straight  line,  however  acute  may  be 
the  angle  which  the  divergent  lines  enclose  at  the 
starting,  and  however  small  may  seem  to  be  the 
deviation  from  parallelism,  will,  if  prolonged  to  in- 
finity, have  room  between  the  two  for  all  the  stars. 


V.18]    THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CALLING        59 

and  the  distance  between  them  will  be  that  the  one 
is  in  heaven  and  the  other  is  in  hell.  And  so  it  is 
a  great  thing  to  live  amongst  the  little  things, 
and  life  gains  its  true  significance  when  we  dwarf 
and  magnify  it  by  linking  it  with  the  world  to 
come. 

If  we  only  kept  that  hope  bright  before  us,  how 
little  discomforts  and  sorrows  and  troubles  would 
matter !  Life  would  become  '  a  solemn  scorn  of  ills.' 
It  does  not  matter  much  what  kind  of  cabin  accom- 
modation we  have  if  we  are  only  going  a  short 
voyage ;  the  main  thing  is  to  make  the  port.  If  we, 
as  Christian  people,  cherish,  as  we  ought  to  do,  this 
great  hope,  then  we  shall  be  able  to  control,  and  not 
to  despise  but  to  exalt  this  fleeting  and  transient 
scene,  because  it  is  linked  inseparably  with  the  life 
that  is  to  come. 

IV.  Lastly,  this  hope  needs  enlightened  eyes. 

The  Apostle  prays  that  God  may  give  to  these 
Ephesians  'the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  in 
the  knowledge  of  Him,'  and  then  he  adds,  as  the 
result  of  that  gift,  the  desire  that  the  Ephesian 
believers  may  have  *  the  eyes  of  their  hearts  en- 
lightened.' That  is  a  remarkable  expression.  It  does 
not  mean,  as  an  English  reader  might  suppose  it  to 
mean,  that  the  affections  are  the  agents  by  which 
this  knowledge  reaches  us ;  but  '  heart '  is  here  used, 
as  it  often  is  in  Scripture,  as  a  general  expression 
for  the  whole  inward  life,  and  all  that  the  Apostle 
means  is  that,  by  the  gift  of  the  Divine  Spirit  of 
wisdom,  a  man's  inner  nature  may  be  so  touched  as 
to  be  capable  of  perceiving  and  grasping  the  '  hope  of 
the  calling.' 

Observe,  too,  the  language,  'that  ye  may  know  the 


60       EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  i. 

hope.*  How  can  you  know  a  hope?  How  do  you 
know  any  kind  of  feeling?  By  having  it.  The  only 
way  of  knowing  what  is  the  hope  is  to  hope,  and  this 
is  only  possible  by  dint  of  these  eyes  of  the  under- 
standing being  enlightened.  For  our  inward  nature, 
as  we  have  it,  and  as  we  use  it,  without  the  touch  of 
that  Divine  Spirit,  is  so  engrossed  with  this  present 
that  the  far-off  blessedness  to  which  my  text  refers 
has  no  chance  of  entering  there.  No  man  can  look  at 
something  beside  him  with  one  eye,  and  at  something 
half  a  mile  off  with  the  other.  You  have  to  focus  the 
eye  according  to  the  object;  and  he  who  is  gazing 
upon  the  near  is  thereby  made  blind  to  that  which  is 
afar  off.  If  we  go  crawling  along  the  low  levels  with 
our  eyes  upon  the  dust,  then  of  course  we  cannot  see 
the  crown  above. 

We  need  more  than  the  historical  revelation  of  the 
light  in  order  to  enlighten  the  inward  nature.  There 
is  many  a  man  here  now  who  knows  all  about  the 
immortality  that  is  brought  to  light  by  Jesus  Christ 
just  as  well  as  the  Christian  man  whose  soul  is  full  of 
the  hope  of  it,  and  who  yet,  for  all  his  knowledge, 
does  not  know  the  hope,  because  he  has  not  felt  it. 
You  have  to  get  further  than  to  the  acceptance 
intellectually  of  the  historical  facts  of  a  risen  and 
ascended  Saviour  before  there  can  be,  in  your  heart, 
any  vital  hope  of  immortality.  The  inward  eye  must 
be  cleared  and  strengthened,  cross  lights  must  be 
shut  out  so  that  we  may  direct  the  single  eye  of  our 
hearts  towards  the  great  objects  which  alone  are 
worthy  of  its  fixed  contemplation.  And  we  cannot 
do  that  without  a  divine  help,  that  Spirit  of  wisdom 
which  will  fill  our  hearts  if  we  ask  for  it,  which  will 
fix  our  affections,  which  will  clear  our  eyesight,  which 


y.  18]    THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CALLING        61 

will  withdraw  it  from  seeing  vanity  as  well  as  give  it 
reality  to  see. 

But  we  must  observe  the  conditions.  Since  this 
clearness  of  hope  comes  not  merely  from  the  accept- 
ance as  a  truth  of  the  fact  of  Christ's  Resurrection 
and  Ascension,  but  comes  through  the  gift  of  that 
Divine  Spirit,  then  to  have  it  you  must  ask  for  it. 
Christian  people,  do  you  ask  for  it?  Do  you  ever 
pray — I  do  not  mean  in  words,  but  in  real  desire — 
that  God  would  help  you  to  keep  steadily  before  you 
that  great  future  to  which  we  are  all  going  so  fast? 
If  you  do  you  will  get  the  answer.  Seek  for  that 
Spirit;  use  it,  and  do  not  resist  its  touches.  Do  not 
fix  your  gaze  on  the  world  when  God  is  trying  to 
draw  you  to  fix  it  upon  Himself.  Think  more  about 
Jesus  Christ,  more  about  God's  high  calling,  live 
nearer  to  Him,  and  try  more  honestly,  more  earnestly, 
more  prayerfully,  more  habitually,  even  amidst  all 
the  troubles  and  difficulties  and  trivialities  of  each 
day,  to  cultivate  that  great  faculty  of  joyful  and 
assured  hope. 

Surely  God  did  not  endue  us  with  the  power  of 
hoping  that  we  might  fling  it  all  away  on  trivial, 
transient  things.  We  are  all  far  too  short-sighted; 
our  fault  is  not  that  we  do  not  hope,  but  that  we  hope 
for  such  near  things,  for  such  small  things,  like  the 
old  mariners  who  had  no  compass  nor  sextant,  and 
were  obliged  to  creep  timidly  along  the  coasts,  and 
steer  from  headland  to  headland.  But  we  ought  to 
launch  boldly  out  into  mid-ocean,  knowing  that  we 
have  before  us  that  star  that  cannot  guide  us  amiss. 
Do  not  set  your  hopes  on  the  things  that  perish,  for 
if  you  do,  hopes  fulfilled  and  hopes  disappointed  will 
be  equally  bitter   in  your   mouths.     And  you   older 


62       EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.l 

people  who,  like  myself,  are  drawing  near  the  end 
of  your  days,  and  have  little  else  left  to  hope  for  in  this 
world,  do  you  see  to  it  that  your  anticipations  extend 
*  above  the  ruinable  skies.'  There  is  an  object  beyond 
experience,  above  imagination,  without  example,  for 
which  the  creation  wants  a  comparison,  we  an  appre- 
hension, and  the  Word  of  God  itself  a  sufficient  reve- 
lation. *It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.' 
God  hath  called  us  to  His  eteriial  kingdom  and  glory ; 
let  us  seek  to  walk  in  the  light  of  the  'hope  of  His 
calling.' 


GOD'S  INHERITANCE  IN  THE  SAINTS 

•That  ye  may  know  what  is  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  His  inheritance  in  the 
saints.'— Eph.  L  18. 

The  misery  of  Hope  is  that  it  so  often  owes  its  mate- 
rials to  the  strength  of  our  desires  or  to  the  activity  of 
our  imagination.  But  when  mere  wishes  or  fancies 
spin  the  thread,  Hope  cannot  weave  a  lasting  fabric. 
And  so  one  of  the  old  prophets,  in  speaking  of  the 
delusive  hopes  of  man,  says  that  they  are  like  '  spiders' 
webs,'  and  '  shall  not  become  garments.'  Paul,  then, 
having  been  asking  for  these  Ephesian  Christians  that 
they  might  have  hopes  lofty  and  worthy,  and  such  as 
God's  summons  to  them  would  inspire,  passes  on  to 
ask  that  they  might  have  the  material  out  of  which 
they  could  weave  such  hope,  namely,  a  sure  and  clear 
knowledge  of  the  future  blessings.  The  language  in 
which  he  describes  that  future  is  remarkable — 'the 
riches  of  the  glory  of  His  inheritance  in  the  saints.' 
He  calls  it  God's  inheritance,  not  as  meaning  that  God 
is  the  Inheritor,  but  the  Giver.    He  speaks  of  it  as  '  in 


V.18]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  63 

the  saints,'  meaning  that,  just  as  the  land  of  Canaan 
was  distributed  amongst  tribes  and  families,  and  each 
man  got  his  own  little  plot,  so  that  broad  land  is  parted 
out  amongst  those  who  are  '  partakers  of  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  saints  in  light.' 

And  so  my  text  suggests  to  me  three  points  to  which 
I  seek  to  call  your  attention.  First,  the  inheritance ; 
second,  the  heirs ;  and  third,  the  heirs'  present  know- 
ledge of  their  future  possession. 

I.  First,  then,  note  the  inheritance. 

Now  we  must  discharge  from  the  word  some  of  its 
ordinary  associations.  There  is  no  reference  to  the 
thought  of  succession  in  it,  as  the  mere  English  reader 
is  accustomed  to  think — to  whom  inheritance  means 
possession  by  the  death  of  another.  The  idea  is  simply 
that  of  possession.  The  figure  which  underlies  the 
word  is,  of  course,  that  of  the  ancient  partition  of  the 
land  of  Canaan  amongst  the  tribes,  but  we  must  go  a 
great  deal  deeper  than  that  in  order  to  understand  its 
whole  sweep  and  fulness  of  meaning. 

What  is  the  portion  for  a  soul?  God.  God  is 
Heaven,  and  Heaven  is  God.  No  interpretation  of 
'the  inheritance,' however  it  may  run  into  cheap  and 
vulgar  sensuous  descriptions  of  a  future  glory,  has 
come  within  sight  of  the  meaning  of  the  word,  unless 
it  has  grasped  this  as  the  central  thought:  'Whom 
have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee  ?  And  there  is  none  upon 
earth  that  I  desire  beside  Tlieo.'  Only  God  can  be  the 
portion  of  a  human  spirit.  And  none  else  can  fill  the 
narrowest  and  the  smallest  of  man's  needs. 

So,  then,  if  there  were  realised  all  the  accumulated 
changes  of  progress  in  blessedness,  and  the  withdrawal 
of  all  external  causes  of  disquiet  and  weariness  and 
weeping,  still  the  heart  would  hunger  and  bo  empty  of 


64        EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  i. 

its  true  possession  unless  God  Himself  had  flowed  into 
it.  It  were  but  a  poor  advancement  and  the  gain  of  a 
loss,  if  yearnings  were  made  immortal,  and  the  aching 
vacuity,  which  haunts  every  soul  that  is  parted  from 
God,  were  cursed  with  immortality.  It  would  be  so, 
if  it  be  not  true  that  the  inheritance  is  nothing  less 
than  the  fuller  possession  of  God  Himself. 

And  how  do  men  possess  God  ?  How  do  we  possess 
one  another,  here  and  now  ?  By  precisely  the  same 
way,  only  indefinitely  expanded  and  exalted,  do  we 
possess  Him  here,  and  shall  we  possess  Him  hereafter. 
Heart  to  heart  is  joined  by  love  which  is  mutual  and 
interpenetrating  possession  ;  where  '  m.ine '  and  '  thine ' 
become  blended,  like  the  several  portions  of  the  one 
ray  of  white  light,  in  the  blessed  word  '  ours.'  Con- 
templation makes  us  possessors  of  God.  Assimilation 
to  His  character  makes  us  own  and  have  Him.  They 
who  love  and  gaze,  and  are  being  changed  by  still 
degrees  into  His  likeness,  possess  Him.  This  is  the 
central  idea  of  man's  future  destiny  and  highest  blessed- 
ness, a  union  with  God  closer  and  more  intimate  in 
degree,  but  yet  essentially  the  same  in  kind,  as  is  here 
possible  amidst  the  shows  and  vanities  and  weari- 
nesses of  this  mortal  life.  '  His  servants  shall  serve 
Him,  and  see  His  face,  and  His  name  shall  be  on  their 
foreheads.'  Obedience,  contemplation,  transformation, 
these  are  the  hands  by  which  we  here  lay  hold  on 
God ;  and  they  in  the  heavens  grasp  Him  just  as  we 
here  on  earth  may  do.  The  'inheritance'  is  God 
Himself. 

Surely  that  is  in  accordance  with  the  whole  teaching 
of  Scripture,  and  is  but  the  expansion  of  plain  words 
which  tell  us  that  we  '  are  heirs  of  God.'  If  that  be  so, 
then  all   the  other  subsidiary  blessings   which  have 


V.18]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  65 

been,  to  the  sore  detriment  of  Christian  anticipation 
and  of  Christian  life  in  a  hundred  ways,  elevated  into 
disproportionate  importance,  fall  into  their  right  places, 
and  are  more  when  they  are  looked  upon  as  secondary 
than  when  they  are  looked  upon  as  primary. 

Ah,  brethren  !  neither  the  sensuous  metaphors  which, 
in  accommodation  to  our  weakness,  Scripture  has  used 
to  paint  that  future  so  that  we  may,  in  some  measure, 
comprehend  it,  nor  the  translation  of  these,  in  so  far 
as  they  refer  to  circumstances  and  externals,  are 
enough  for  us.  It  is  blessed  to  know  that  '  there  shall 
be  no  night  there ' — blessed  to  grasp  all  those  sweet 
negatives  which  contradict  the  miseries  of  the  world, 
and  to  think  of  no  sin,  no  curse,  no  tears,  no  sighing 
nor  sorrow,  neither  any  more  pain,  •  because  the  former 
things  have  passed  away.'  It  is  sweet  and  ennobling 
to  think  that,  when  we  are  discharged  of  the  load  of 
this  cumbrous  flesh,  we  shall  be  much  more  ourselves, 
and  able  to  see  where  now  is  but  darkness,  and  to  feel 
where  now  is  but  vacancy.  It  is  blessed  to  think  of 
the  recognising  of  lost  and  loved  ones.  But  all  these 
blessednesses,  heaped  together,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
would  become  sickeningly  the  same  if  prolonged 
through  eternity,  unless  we  had  God  for  our  very  own. 
Eternal  is  an  awful  word,  even  when  the  noun  that 
goes  with  it  is  blessedness.  And  I  know  not  how  even 
the  redeemed  could  be  saved,  as  the  long  ages  rolled 
on,  from  the  oppression  of  monotony,  and  the  feeling, 
'  I  would  not  live  always,'  unless  God  was  '  the  strength 
of  their  hearts,  and  their  portion  for  ever.'  We  must 
rise  above  everything  that  merely  applies  to  changes 
in  our  own  natures  and  in  our  relations  to  the  external 
universe,  and  to  other  orders  of  creatures ;  and  grasp, 
as  the  hidden  sweetness  that  lies  in  the  calyx  of  the 

£ 


66      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  l 

gorgeous  flower,  the  possession  of  God  Himself  as  the 
rapture  of  our  joy  and  the  heaven  of  our  heaven. 

And  if  that  be  so,  then  these  accunuilated  words  with 
which  the  Apostle,  in  his  fiery,  impetuous  way,  tries  to 
set  forth  the  greatness  of  what  he  is  speaking  about, 
receive  a  loftier  meaning  than  they  otherwise  would 
have. 

'The  riches  of  the  glory  of  His  inheritance' — now 
that  word  '  riches,'  or  '  wealth,'  is  a  favourite  of  Paul's ; 
and  in  this  single  letter  occurs,  if  I  count  rightly,  five 
times.  In  addition  to  our  text,  it  is  used  twice  in  con- 
nection with  God's  grace,  'the  riches  of  His  grace' 
once  in  connection  with  Jesus,  '  the  unsearchable 
riches  of  Christ';  and  once  in  a  similar  connection  to, 
though  with  a  different  application  from,  our  text, 
'the  riches  of  His  glory.'  Always, you  see,  it  is  applied 
to  something  that  is  special  and  properly  divine.  And 
here,  therefore,  it  applies,  not  to  the  abundance  of  any 
creatural  good,  however  exuberant  and  inexhaustible 
the  store  of  it  may  be,  but  simply  and  solely  to  that 
unwearying  energy,  that  self- feeding  and  ever-burning 
and  never-decaying  light,  which  is  God.  Of  Him  alone 
it  can  be  said  that  work  does  not  exhaust,  nor  Being 
tend  to  its  own  extinction,  nor  expenditure  of  re- 
sources to  their  diminution.  The  guarantee  for  eternal 
blessedness  is  the  '  riches '  of  the  eternal  God,  and  so 
we  may  be  sure  that  no  time  can  exhaust,  nor  any  ex- 
penditure empty,  either  His  storehouse  or  our  wealth. 

And  again,  the  'glory'  is  not  the  lustrous  light,  how- 
ever dazzling  to  our  feeble  eyes  that  may  be,  of  any 
creature  that  reflects  the  light  of  God,  but  it  is  the  far- 
flashing  and  never-dying  radiance  of  His  own  manifes- 
tation of  Himself  to  the  hearts  and  souls  of  them  that 
love  Him.      And  so  the  'inheritance  is  incorruptible 


V.18]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  67 

and  undefiled,  and  fadeth  not  away' ;  not  merely  by 
reason  of  the  communicated  will  of  God  operating 
upon  creatures  whom  He  preserves  untarnished  by 
corruption,  and  ungnawed  by  decay,  but  because  He 
Himself  is  the  '  inheritance,'  and  on  Him  time  hath  no 
power.  On  His  wealth  all  His  creatures  may  hang  for 
ever;  and  it  shall  be  as  it  was  in  the  sweet  parable  of 
the  miracle  of  old,  the  fragments  that  remain  will  be 
more  than  when  the  meal  began.  '  The  riches  of  the 
glory  of  His  inheritance.' 

II.  Now  notice,  secondly,  the  heirs. 

The  words  of  my  text  receive,  perhaps,  their  best 
commentary  and  explanation  in  those  words  which 
the  writer  of  them  heard,  on  the  Damascus  road, 
when  the  voice  from  heaven  spoke  to  him  about  men 
'obtaining  an  inheritance  among  them  that  are  sancti- 
fied.' It  almost  sounds  like  an  echo  of  that  long  past, 
but  never-to-be-forgotten  voice,  when  our  Apostle 
writes  as  he  does  in  our  text. 

Now  what  does  he  mean  by  'saints'?  Who  are 
these  amongst  whom  the  broad  acres  of  that  infinite 
prairie  are  to  be  parted  out  ?  The  word  has  attracted 
to  itself  contemptuous  meanings  and  ascetical  mean- 
ings, and  meanings  which  really  deny  the  true  demo- 
cracy of  Christianity  and  the  equality  of  all  believers 
in  the  sight  of  God.  But  its  scriptural  use  has  none  of 
these  narrowing  and  confusing  associations  adhering 
to  it,  nor  does  it  even  directly  and  at  first  mean,  as  we 
generally  take  it  to  mean,  pure  men,  holy  in  the  sense 
of  clean  and  righteous.  But  something  goes  before 
that  phase  of  meaning,  and  it  is  this — a  saint  is  a  man 
separated  and  set  apart  for  God,  as  His  property. 
That  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  word.  It  is  its  mean- 
ing as  it  is  applied  to  the  vessels  of  the  Temple,  the 


68      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    rcH.L 

priests,  tbe  services,  and  the  altar.  It  is  its  meaning, 
only  with  the  necessary  substitution  of  spirit  for  body, 
as  it  is  applied  in  the  New  Testament  as  a  designation 
co-extensive  with  that  of  believers. 

How  does  a  man  belong  to  God  ? 

We  asked  a  minute  or  two  ago  how  God  belonged  to 
men.  The  answer  to  the  converse  question  is  almost 
identical.  A  man  belongs  to  God  by  the  affection  of 
his  heart,  by  the  submission  of  his  will,  by  the  refer- 
ence of  his  actions  to  Him ;  and  he  who  thus  belongs 
to  God,  in  the  same  act  in  which  he  gives  himself  to 
God,  receives  God  as  his  possession.  The  thing  must 
be  reciprocal.  'All  mine  is  Thine';  and  God  answers, 
'  And  all  Mine  is  thine.'  He  ever  meets  our  '  O  Lord,  I 
yield  myself  to  Thee,'  with  His  '  And  My  child,  I  give 
Myself  to  thee.'  It  is  so  in  regard  of  our  earthly  loves. 
It  is  so  in  regard  of  our  relations  to  Him.  And  that 
being  the  case,  purity,  which  is  generally  taken  by 
careless  readers  as  being  the  main  idea  of  sanctity, 
will  follow  this  self-surrender,  which  is  the  basis  of 
all  goodness,  everywhere  and  always. 

If  that  be  true,  and  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  effectively 
denied,  then  the  next  step  is  a  very  plain  one,  and 
that  is  that  for  the  perfect  possession  of  God,  which  is 
heaven,  the  same  thing  is  needed  in  its  perfection 
which  is  required  for  the  partial  possession  of  Him 
that  makes  the  Christian  life  of  earth.  And  just  as 
here  we  get  Him  for  ours  in  proportion  as  we  give  up 
ourselves  to  be  His,  so  yonder  the  inheritance  belongs, 
and  can  only  belong  to,  '  the  saints.'  So,  then,  one  can 
see  that  there  is  nothing  arbitrary  in  this  limitation  of 
a  possession,  which  in  its  very  nature  cannot  go  beyond 
the  bounds  which  are  thus  marked  out  for  it.  If 
heaven  were  the  vulgar  thing  that  some  of  you  think 


V.18]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  69 

it,  if  that  future  life  were  desirable  simply  because  you 
escaped  from  some  external  punishm.ent  and  got  all 
sorts  of  outward  blessings  and  joys,  felicities  and  ad- 
vantages, hung  round  the  neck,  or  pinned  upon  the 
breast,  as  they  do  to  successful  fighters,  why  then,  of 
course,  there  might  be  partiality  in  the  distribution  of 
the  decorations.  But  if  that  possession  hinges  upon 
our  yielding  ourselves  to  Him,  then  there  is  not  an 
arbitrary  link  in  the  whole  chain.  Faith  is  set  forth 
as  the  condition  of  heaven,  because  faith  is  the  means 
of  union  with  Christ,  by  and  from  whom  alone  we 
draw  the  motives  for  self- surrender  and  the  power  for 
sanctity.  You  cannot  have  heaven  unless  you  have 
God.  That  is  step  number  one.  You  cannot  have  God 
unless  you  have  '  holiness,  without  which  no  man  shall 
see  the  Lord.'  That  is  step  number  two.  You  cannot 
have  holiness  without  faith.  That  is  step  number 
three.  *  An  inheritance  among  them  that  are  sancti- 
fied'; and  then  there  is  added,  'by  faith  which  is  in  Me.' 
It  is  clear,  too,  what  a  fatal  delusion  some  of  us  are 
under  who  think  that  we  shall,  and  fancy  that  we 
should  like  to,  as  we  say,  'go  to  heaven  when  we  die.' 
Why,  heaven  is  here,  round  about  you,  a  present 
heaven  in  the  imitation  of  God,  in  the  practice  of 
righteousness,  in  the  cultivation  of  dependence  upon 
Him,  in  the  yielding  of  yourselves  up  to  Him.  Heaven 
is  here,  and  by  your  own  choice  you  stop  outside  of  it. 
There  must  be  a  correspondence  between  environment 
and  nature  for  blessedness.  'The  mind  is  its  own 
place,'  as  the  great  Puritan  poet  taught  us,  '  and  makes 
a  heaven  of  hell,  a  hell  of  heaven.'  Fishes  die  on  the 
shore,  and  the  man  that  drew  them  out  dies  in  the 
water.  Gills  cannot  breathe  where  lungs  are  useful, 
and  lungs  cannot,  where  gills  come  into  play.    If  you 


70      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [oh.i. 

have  not  here  and  now  the  holiness  which  knits  you  to 
God,  and  gives  you  possession  of  Him,  you  would  not 
like  'heaven,'  if  it  were  possible  to  carry  you  to  that 
place,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  place.  It  is  rather  strange,  if 
you  hope  to  go  to  heaven  when  you  die,  that  you  should 
be  very  unwilling  to  spend  a  little  time  in  it  whilst  you 
are  alive,  and  that  you  should  expect  blessedness  then 
from  that  presence  of  God  which  brings  you  no 
blessedness  now. 

III.  Lastly,  we  have  here  the  heirs'  present  know- 
ledge of  their  future  blessedness. 

The  Apostle  asks  that  these  men  may  know  a  thing 
that  clearly  seems  unknowable.  It  is  an  impossible 
petition,  we  might  be  ready  to  say,  because  it  is  clear 
enough  that  there  can  be  no  true  knowledge  of  the 
conditions  and  details  of  that  future  life.  The  dark 
mountains  that  lie  between  us  and  it  hide  their  secret 
well,  and  few  or  no  stray  beams  have  reached  us.  An 
unborn  babe,  or  a  chrysalis  in  a  hole  in  the  ground  or 
in  a  chink  of  a  tree,  might  think  as  wisely  about  its 
future  condition  as  ^ive  can  do  about  that  life  beyond. 
There  can  be  no  knowledge  until  there  is  experience. 

What,  then,  does  Paul  mean  by  framing  such  a 
petition  as  this  ?  The  answer  is  found  in  noticing  that 
the  knowledge  which  he  is  imploring  here  is  a  conse- 
quence of  a  previous  knowledge.  For,  in  a  former 
verse,  he  prays  that  these  men  may  have  '  the  spirit  of 
wisdom  in  the  knowledge  of  God';  and  when  they 
have  got  the  knowledge  of  God  he  thinks  that  they 
will  have  got  the  knowledge  of  '  the  riches  of  the 
glory  of  His  inheritance  in  the  saints.'  Now,  turn 
that  into  other  words,  and  it  is  just  this,  that  the 
knowledge  of  God,  which  comes  by  faith  and  love  here, 
is  in  kind  so  identical  with  the  fullest  and  loftiest 


V.18]  GOD'S  INHERITANCE  71 

riches  of  the  knowledge  of  Him  hereafter,  that,  if  we 
have  the  one,  we  are  not  without  the  other.  The 
one  is  in  germ,  the  other,  no  doubt,  full  blown;  the 
one  is  the  twinkling  of  the  rushlight,  as  it  were,  the 
other  is  the  blaze  of  the  sunshine.  The  two  states  of 
being  are  so  correspondent  that  from  the  one  we  draw 
our  clearest  knowledge  of  the  other.  There  are  tele- 
scopes, in  using  which  you  do  not  look  up  when  you 
want  to  see  the  stars,  but  down  on  to  a  reflecting 
mirror,  and  there  you  see  them.  Such  a  reflecting 
mirror,  though  it  be  sometimes  muddied  and  dimmed 
and  always  very  small,  are  the  experiences  of  the 
Christian  soul  here. 

So,  dear  friends,  if  we  want  to  know  as  much  as 
may  be  known  of  the  blessedness  of  heaven,  let  us 
seek  to  possess  as  much  as  may  be  possessed  of  the 
knowledge  and  love  of  God  on  earth.  Then  we  shall 
know  the  centre,  at  any  rate ;  and  that  is  light,  though 
the  circumference  may  be  very  dark.  Much  will  re- 
main obscure.  That  is  of  very  small  consequence  to 
Hope,  which  does  not  need  information  half  so  much 
as  it  needs  assurance.  Like  some  flower  in  the  cranny 
of  the  rock,  it  can  spread  a  broad  bright  blossom  on 
little  soil,  if  only  it  be  firmly  rooted. 

The  path  for  us  all  is  plain.  Come  to  Jesus  Christ 
as  sinful  men,  and  take  what  He  has  given,  who  has 
given  Himself  for  us.  Touched  by  His  love,  let  us  love 
Him  back  again,  and  yield  ourselves  to  Him,  and  He 
will  give  Himself  to  us.  They  who  can  say,  *  O  Lord  ! 
I  am  Thine,'  are  sure  to  hear  from  heaven,  '  I  am 
thine.'  And  they  who  possess,  in  being  possessed  by, 
God  Himself,  do  not  need  to  die  in  order  to  go  to 
heaven,  but  are  at  least  doorkeepers  in  the  house  of 
the  Lord  now,  and  stand  where  they  can  see  into  the 


72      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [ch.i. 

inner  sanctuary  which  they  will  one  day  tread.  A  life 
of  faith  brings  Heaven  to  us,  and  thereby  gives  us  the 
surest  and  the  clearest  knowledge  of  what  we  shall  be, 
and  have,  when  we  are  brought  to  heaven. 


THE  MEASURE  OF  IMMEASURABLE  POWER 

'That  ye  may  know  .  .  .  whatis  the  exceeding  greatness  of  His  power  to  usward 
who  believe,  according  to  the  working  of  His  mighty  power,  which  He  wrought 
in  Christ.'— Bph.  i.  19,  20. 

'The  riches  of  the  glory  of  the  inheritance'  will  some- 
times quench  rather  than  stimulate  hope.  He  can 
have  little  depth  of  religion  who  has  not  often  felt 
that  the  transcendent  glory  of  that  promised  future 
sharpens  the  doubt — 'and  can  /ever  hope  to  reach  it?' 
Our  paths  are  strewn  with  battlefields  where  we  were 
defeated ;  how  should  we  expect  the  victor's  wreath  ? 
And  so  Paul  does  not  think  that  he  has  asked  all  which 
his  friends  in  Ephesus  need  when  he  has  asked  that 
they  may  know  the  hope  and  the  inheritance.  There 
is  something  more  wanted,  something  more  even  for 
our  knowledge  of  these,  and  that  is  the  knowledge  of 
the  power  which  alone  can  fulfil  the  hope  and  bring 
the  inheritance.  His  language  swells  and  peals  and 
becomes  exuberant  and  noble  with  his  theme.  He 
catches  fire,  as  it  were,  as  he  thinks  about  this  power 
that  worketh  in  us.  It  is  'exceeding.'  Exceeding 
what?  He  does  not  tell  us,  but  other  words  in  this 
letter,  in  the  other  great  prayer  which  it  contains, 
may  help  us  to  supply  the  missing  words.  He  speaks 
of  the  'love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge,'  and 
of  God  being  '  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above 
p.11  that  we  can  ask  or  think.'     The  power  which  is 


vs.  19, 20]    IMMEASURABLE  POWER  73 

really  at  work  in  Christian  men  to-day  is  in  its  nature 
properly  transcendent  and  immeasurable,  and  passes 
thought  and  desire  and  knowledge. 

And  yet  it  has  a  measure.  '  According  to  the  work- 
ing of  the  strength  of  the  might  which  Ho  wrought 
in  Christ.'  Is  that  heaping  together  of  synonyms  or 
all  but  synonyms,  mere  tautology  ?  Surely  not.  Com- 
mentators tell  us  that  they  can  distinguish  differences 
of  meaning  between  the  words,  in  that  the  first  of  them 
is  the  more  active  and  outward,  and  the  last  of  them 
is  the  more  inward.  And  so  they  liken  them  to  fruit 
and  branch  and  root ;  but  we  need  simply  say  that  the 
gathering  together  of  words  so  nearly  co-extensive  in 
their  meaning  is  witness  to  the  effort  to  condense  the 
infinite  within  the  bounds  of  human  tongue,  to  speak 
the  unspeakable;  and  that  these  reiterated  expressions, 
like  the  blows  of  the  billows  that  succeed  one  another 
on  the  beach,  are  hints  of  the  force  of  the  infinite  ocean 
that  lies  behind. 

And  then  the  Apostle,  when  he  has  once  come  in 
sight  of  his  risen  Lord,  as  is  his  wont,  is  swept  away 
by  the  ardour  of  his  faith  and  the  clearness  of  his 
vision,  and  breaks  from  his  purpose  in  order  to  dilate 
on  the  glories  of  his  King.  We  do  not  need  to  follow 
him  into  that.  I  limit  myself  now  to  the  words  which 
I  have  read  as  my  text,  with  only  such  reference 
to  the  magnificent  passage  which  succeeds  as  may  be 
necessary  for  the  exposition  of  this. 

I.  So,  then,  I  ask  you  to  look,  first,  at  the  measure 
and  example  of  the  immeasurable  power  that  works  in 
Christian  men. 

•According  to  the  working  of  the  strength  of  the 
might  which  He  wrought  in  Christ' — the  Resurrec- 
tion, the  Ascension,  the  session  at  the  right  hand  of 


74      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [ch.  i. 

God,  the  rule  over  all  creatures,  and  the  exaltation 
above  all  things  on  earth  or  in  the  heavens — these 
are  the  facts  which  the  Apostle  brings  before  us  as 
the  pattern-w^orks,  the  chefs-d'oeuvre  of  the  power  that 
is  operating  in  all  Christians.  The  present  glories  of 
the  ascended  Christ  are  glories  possessed  by  a  Man, 
and,  that  being  so,  they  are  available  as  evidences  and 
measures  of  the  power  which  works  in  believing  souls. 
In  them  we  see  the  possibilities  of  humanity,  the  ideal 
for  man  which  God  had  when  He  created  and  breathed 
His  blessing  upon  him.  It  is  one  of  ourselves  who 
has  strength  enough  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  glory, 
one  of  ourselves  who  can  stand  within  the  blaze  of 
encircling  and  indwelling  Divinity  and  be  unconsumed. 
The  possibilities  of  human  nature  are  manifest  there. 
If  we  want  to  know  what  the  Divine  Power  can  make 
of  us,  let  us  turn  to  look  with  the  eye  of  faith  upon 
what  it  has  made  of  Jesus  Christ. 

But  such  a  thought,  glorious  as  it  is,  still  leaves 
room  for  doubt  as  to  my  personal  attainment  of  such 
an  ideal.  Possibility  is  much,  but  we  need  solid  cer- 
tainty. And  we  find  it  in  the  truth  that  the  bond 
between  Christ  and  those  who  truly  love  and  trust 
Him  is  such  as  that  the  possibility  must  become  a 
reality  and  be  consolidated  into  a  certainty.  The  Vine 
and  its  branches,  their  Head  and  the  members,  the 
Christ  and  His  Church,  are  knit  together  by  such 
closeness  of  union  as  that  wheresoever  and  whatso- 
ever the  one  is,  there  and  that  must  the  others  also 
be.  Therefore,  when  doubts  and  fears,  and  conscious- 
ness of  our  own  weakness,  creep  across  us,  and  all  our 
hopes  are  dimmed,  as  some  star  in  the  heavens  is, 
when  a  light  mist  floats  between  us  and  it,  let  us  turn 
away  to  Him  our  brother,  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh 


vs.  19, 20]     IMMEASURABLE  POWER  75 

of  our  flesh,  and  think  that  He,  in  His  calm  exaltation 
and  regal  authority  and  infinite  blessedness,  is  not  only 
the  pattern  of  what  humanity  may  be,  but  the  pledge 
of  what  His  Church  must  be.  '  Where  I  am,  there  shall 
also  My  servant  be.'  '  The  glory  that  Thou  gavest  Me 
I  have  given  them.' 

Nor  is  that  all.  Not  only  a  possibility  and  a  certainty 
for  the  future  are  for  us  the  measure  of  the  power  that 
worketh  in  us,  but  as  this  same  letter  teaches  us,  we 
have,  as  Christians,  a  present  scale  by  which  we  may 
estimate  the  greatness  of  the  power.  For  in  the  next 
chapter,  after  that  glorious  burst  as  to  the  dignity  of 
his  Lord,  which  we  have  not  the  heart  to  call  a 
digression,  the  Apostle,  recurring  to  the  theme  of  my 
text,  goes  on  to  say,  '  And  you  hath  He  quickened,'  and 
then,  catching  it  up  again  a  verse  or  two  afterwards, 
he  reiterates,  clause  by  clause,  what  had  been  done  on 
Jesus  as  having  been  done  on  us  Christians.  If  that 
Divine  Spirit  raised  Him  from  the  dead,  and  set  Him 
at  His  own  right  hand  in  the  heavenly  places,  it  is  as 
true  that  the  same  power  hath  '  raised  us  up  together, 
and  made  us  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus.*  And  so  not  only  the  far-off,  though  real  and 
brilliant,  and  eye  and  heart-filling  glories  of  the 
ascended  Christ  give  us  the  measure  of  the  power,  but 
also  the  limited  experience  of  the  present  Christian 
life,  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  from  the  true  death, 
the  death  of  sin,  the  fact  of  union  with  Jesus  Christ 
so  real  and  close  as  that  they  who  truly  experience  it 
do  live,  as  far  as  the  roots  of  their  lives  and  the  scope 
and  the  aim  of  them  are  concerned,  '  in  the  heavens,' 
and  'sit  with  Him  in  heavenly  places' — these  things 
afford  us  the  measure  of  the  power  that  worketh 
in  us. 


76      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  i. 

Then,  because  a  Man  is  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of 
lords ;  and  because  He  who  is  our  Life  '  is  exalted  high 
above  all  principalities  and  powers ' ;  and  because  from 
His  throne  He  has  quickened  us  from  the  death  of  sin, 
and  has  drawn  us  so  near  to  Himself  that  if  we  are 
His  we  truly  live  beside  Him,  even  whilst  we  stumble 
here  in  the  darkness,  we  may  know  the  exceeding 
greatness  of  His  power,  according  to  the  working  of 
the  strength  of  the  might  which  He  wrought  in  Christ 
when  He  raised  Him  from  the  dead. 

II.  Secondly,  notice  the  knowledge  of  the  unknow- 
able power. 

We  have  already  come  across  the  same  apparent 
paradox,  covering  a  deep  truth,  in  the  former  sections 
of  this  series  of  petitions.  I  need  only  remind  you,  in 
reference  to  this  matter,  that  the  knowledge  which  is 
here  in  question  is  not  the  intellectual  perception  of 
a  fact  as  revealed  in  Scripture,  but  is  that  knowledge 
to  which  alone  the  New  Testament  gives  the  noble 
name,  being  knowledge  verified  by  inward  experience, 
and  the  result  of  one's  own  personal  acquaintance  with 
its  object. 

How  do  we  know  a  power  ?  By  thrilling  beneath  its 
force.  How  are  we  to  know  the  greatness  of  the 
power  but  because  it  comes  surging  and  rejoicing  into 
our  aching  emptiness,  and  lifts  us  buoyant  above  our 
temptations  and  weakness  ?  Paul  was  not  asking  for 
these  people  theological  conceptions.  He  was  asking 
that  their  spirits  might  be  so  saturated  with  and  im- 
mersed in  that  great  ocean  of  force  that  pours  from 
God  as  that  they  should  never,  henceforth,  be  able  to 
doubt  the  greatness  of  that  power  which  wrought  in 
them.  The  knowledge  that  comes  from  experience  is 
the  knowledge  that  we  all  ought  to  seek.    It  is  not 


vs.  19, 20]     IMMEASURABLE  POWER  77 

merely  to  be  desired  that  we  should  have  right  and 
just  conceptions,  but  that  we  should  have  the  vital 
knowledge  which  is,  and  which  conies  from,  life 
eternal. 

And  that  power,  which  thus  we  may  all  know  by 
feeling  it  working  upon  ourselves,  though  it  be  im- 
measurable, has  its  measure  ;  though  it  be,  in  its  depth 
and  fulness,  unknowable  and  inexhaustible,  may  yet 
be  really  and  truly  known.  You  do  not  need  a 
thunderstorm  to  experience  the  electric  shock ;  a 
battery  that  you  can  carry  in  your  pocket  will  do  that 
for  you.  You  do  not  need  to  have  traversed  all  the 
length  and  breadth  and  depth  and  height  of  some 
newly-discovered  country  to  be  sure  of  its  existence, 
and  to  have  a  real,  though  it  may  be  a  vague,  concep- 
tion of  the  magnitude  of  its  shores.  And  so,  really, 
though  boundedly,  we  have  the  knowledge  of  God,  and 
can  rely  upon  it  as  valid,  though  partial ;  and  similarly, 
by  experience  we  have  such  a  certified  acquaintance 
with  Him  and  His  power  as  needs  no  enlargement  to 
be  trusted,  and  to  become  the  source  of  blessings  un- 
told. We  may  see  but  a  strip  of  the  sky  through  the 
narrow  chinks  of  our  prison  windows,  and  many  a 
grating  may  further  intercept  the  view,  and  much 
dust  that  might  be  cleared  away  may  dim  the  glass, 
but  yet  it  is  the  sky  that  we  see,  and  we  can  think  of 
the  great  horizon  circling  round  and  round,  and  of  the 
infinite  depths  above  there,  which  neither  eye  nor 
thought  can  travel  unwearied.  Though  all  that  we 
see  be  but  an  inch  in  breadth  and  a  foot  or  two  in 
height,  yet  we  do  see.  We  know  the  unknowable 
power  that  passeth  knowledge. 

And  let  me  remind  you  of  how  largo  importance 
this    knowledge    of    and    constant    reference    to  the 


78      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS     [ch.i. 

measureless  power  manifested  in  Christ  is  for  us.  I 
believe  there  can  be  no  vigorous,  happy  Christian  life 
vrithout  it.  It  is  our  only  refuge  from  pessimism  and 
despair  for  the  world.  The  old  psalm  said,  '  Thou 
hast  crowned  Him  with  glory  and  honour,  and  hast 
given  Him  dominion  over  the  works  of  Thy  hands,' 
and  hundreds  of  years  afterwards  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  commented  on  it  thus,  '  We 
see  not  yet  all  things  put  under  Him.'  Was  the  old 
vision  a  dream,  was  it  never  intended  to  be  fulfilled  ? 
Apparently  so,  if  we  take  the  history  of  the  past  into 
account,  and  the  centuries  that  have  passed  since  have 
done  nothing  to  make  it  more  probable,  apart  from 
Jesus  Christ,  that  man  will  rise  to  the  height  which 
the  Psalmist  dreamed  of.  When  we  look  at  the 
exploded  Utopias  that  fill  the  past;  when  we  think 
of  the  strange  and  apparently  fatal  necessity  by  which 
evil  is  developed  from  every  stage  of  what  men  call 
progress,  and  how  improvement  is  perverted,  almost 
as  soon  as  effected,  into  another  fortress  of  weakness 
and  misery ;  when  we  look  on  the  world  as  it  is  to- 
day, I  know  not  whence  a  man  is  to  draw  bright  hopes, 
or  what  is  to  deliver  him  from  pessimism  as  his  last  word 
about  himself  and  his  fellows,  except  the  '  working  of 
the  strength  of  the  might  which  He  wrought  in 
Christ.'  '  We  see  not  yet  all  things  put  under  Him ' — 
be  it  so,  '  but  we  see  Jesus,'  and,  looking  to  Him,  hope 
is  i3ossible,  reasonable,  and  imperative. 

The  same  knowledge  is  our  refuge  from  our  own 
consciousness  of  weakness.  We  look  up,  as  a  climber 
may  do  in  some  Alpine  ravine,  upon  the  smooth 
gleaming  walls  of  the  cliff  that  rises  above  us.  It 
is  marble,  it  is  fair,  there  are  lov^ely  lands  on  the 
summit,  but  nothing  that  has  not  wings  can  get  there. 


vs.  19,20]     IMMEASURABLE  POWER  79 

We  try,  but  slip  backwards  almost  as  much  as  we  rise. 
What  is  to  be  done  ?  Are  we  to  sit  down  at  the  foot 
of  the  cliff,  and  say,  'We  cannot  climb,  let  us  be 
content  with  the  luscious  herbage  and  sheltered  ease 
below  ? '  Yes  !  That  is  what  we  are  tempted  to  say. 
But  look !  a  mighty  hand  reaches  over,  an  arm 
is  stretched  down,  the  hand  grasps  us,  and  lifts  us, 
and  sets  us  there. 

'  No  man  hath  ascended  up  into  heaven  save  He  that 
came  down  from  heaven,'  and  having  returned  thither 
stoops  thence,  and  will  lift  us  to  Himself.  I  am  a 
j)oor,  weak  creature.  Yes  !  I  am  all  full  of  sin  and 
corruption.  Yes!  I  am  ashamed  of  myself  every 
day.  Yes!  I  am  too  heavy  to  climb,  and  have  no 
wings  to  fly,  and  am  bound  here  by  chains  manifold. 
Yes!  But  we  know  the  exceeding  greatness  of  the 
power,  and  we  triumph  in  Him. 

That  knowledge  should  shame  us  into  contrition, 
when  we  think  of  such  force  at  our  disposal,  and  such 
poor  results.  That  knowledge  should  widen  our 
conceptions,  enlarge  our  desires,  breathe  a  bravo 
confidence  into  our  hopes,  should  teach  us  to  expect 
great  things  of  God,  and  to  be  intolerant  of  present 
attainments  whilst  anything  remains  unattained.  And 
it  should  stimulate  our  vigorous  effort,  for  no  man 
will  long  seek  to  be  better,  if  he  is  convinced  that  the 
effort  is  hopeless. 

Learn  to  realise  the  exceeding  greatness  of  the  power 
that  will  clothe  your  weakness.  '  Lift  up  your  eyes  on 
high,  and  behold  who  hath  created  these  things,  for 
that  He  is  strong  in  might,  not  one  faileth.'  That  is 
wonderful,  but  here  is  a  far  nobler  operation  of  the 
divine  power.  It  is  great  to  '  preserve  the  ancient 
heavens'  fresh  and   strong   by   His   might,  but  it  is 


80      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  i. 

greater  to  come  down  to  my  weakness,  to  •  give  power 
to  the  faint,'  and  '  increase  strength  to  them  that  have 
no  might.'    And  that  is  what  He  will  do  with  us. 

III.  Lastly,  notice  the  conditions  for  the  operations 
of  the  power. 

•  To  usward  who  believe,'  says  Paul.  He  has  been 
talking  to  these  Ephesians,  and  saying  'ye,' but  now, 
by  that  '  us,'  he  places  himself  beside  them,  identifies 
himself  with  them,  and  declares  that  all  his  gifts  and 
strength  come  to  him  on  precisely  the  same  conditions 
on  which  theirs  do  to  them ;  and  that  he,  like  them, 
is  a  waiter  upon  that  grace  which  God  bestows  on  them 
that  trust  Him. 

'  To  usward  who  believe.'  Once  more  we  are  back  at 
the  old  truth  which  we  can  never  make  too  emphatic 
and  plain,  that  the  one  condition  of  the  weakest  among 
us  being  strong  with  the  strength  of  the  Lord  is  simple 
trust  in  Him,  verified,  of  course,  by  continuance  and  by 
effort. 

How  did  the  water  go  into  the  Ship  Canal  at  East- 
ham  last  week?  First  of  all  they  cut  a  trench,  and 
then  they  severed  the  little  strip  of  land  between  the 
hole  and  the  sea,  and  the  sea  did  the  rest.  The  wider 
and  deeper  the  opening  that  we  make  in  our  natures 
by  our  simple  trust  in  God,  the  fuller  will  be  the  re- 
joicing flood  that  pours  into  us.  There  is  an  old  story 
about  a  Christian  father,  who,  having  been  torturing 
himself  with  theological  speculations  about  the  nature 
of  the  Trinity,  fell  asleep  and  dreamed  that  he  was 
emptying  the  ocean  with  a  thimble  !  Well,  you  cannot 
empty  it  with  a  thimble,  but  you  can  go  to  it  with  one, 
and,  if  you  have  only  a  thimble  in  your  hand,  you  will 
only  bring  away  a  thimbleful.  The  measure  of  your 
faith  is  the  measure  of  God's  power  given  to  you. 


V8.4,5]  RESURRECTION  OF  DEAD  SOULS  81 

There  are  two  measures  of  the  immeasurable  power — 
the  one  is  that  infinite  limit,  of  '  the  power  which  He 
wrought  in  Christ,'  and  the  other  the  practical  limit. 
The  working  measure  of  our  spiritual  life  is  our  faith. 
In  plain  English,  we  can  have  as  much  of  God  as  we 
want.  We  do  have  as  much  as  we  want.  And  if,  in 
touch  with  the  power  that  can  shatter  a  universe,  we 
only  get  a  little  thrill  that  is  scarcely  perceptible  to 
ourselves,  and  all  unnoticed  by  others,  whose  fault 
is  that?  If,  coming  to  the  fountain  that  laughs  at 
drought,  and  can  fill  a  universe  with  its  waters,  we 
scarcely  bear  away  a  straitened  drop  or  two,  that 
barely  refreshes  our  parched  lips,  and  does  nothing  to 
stimulate  the  growth  of  the  plants  of  holiness  in  our 
gardens,  whose  fault  is  that  ?  The  practical  measure 
of  the  power  is  for  us  the  measure  of  our  belief  and 
desire.  And  if  we  only  go  to  Him,  as  I  pray  we  all  may, 
and  continue  there,  and  ask  from  Him  strength,  accord- 
ing to  the  riches  that  are  treasured  in  Jesus  Christ,  we 
shall  get  the  old  answer,  'According  to  your  faith  be 
it  unto  you.' 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  DEAD  SOULS 

'  God,  who  is  rich  In  mercy,  for  His  great  love  wherewith  He  lored  us,  even 
when  we  were  dead  in  sins,  hath  quickened  us  together  with  Christ.' 

Eph,  ii.  4,  6. 

Scripture  paints  man  as  he  is,  in  darker  tints,  and 
man  as  he  may  become,  in  brighter  ones,  than  are 
elsewhere  found.  The  range  of  this  portrait  painter's 
palette  is  from  pitchiest  black  to  most  dazzling  white, 
as  of  snow  smitten  by  sunlight.  Nowhere  else  are 
there  such  sad,  stern  words  about  the  actualities  of 
human  nature;  nowhere  else  such  glowing  and  won- 

F 


82      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

derful  ones  about  its  possibilities.  This  Physician 
knows  that  He  can  cure  the  worst  cases,  if  they  will 
take  His  medicine,  and  is  under  no  temptation  to 
minimise  the  severity  of  the  symptoms  or  the  fatality 
of  the  disease.  We  have  got  both  sides  in  my  text ; 
man's  actual  condition,  'dead  in  trespasses';  man's 
possible  condition,  and  the  actual  condition  of  thou- 
sands of  men — made  to  live  again  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
with  Him  raised  from  the  dead,  and  with  Him  gone  up 
on  high,  and  with  Tllni  sitting  at  God's  right  hand. 
That  is  what  you  and  I  may  be  if  we  will  ;  if  we  will 
not,  then  we  must  be  the  other. 

So  there  are  three  things  here  to  look  at  for  a  few 
moments — the  dead  souls ;  the  pitying  love  that  looks 
down  upon  them  ;  and  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 

I.  First,  here  is  a  picture,  a  dogmatic  statement  if 
you  like,  about  the  actual  condition  of  human  nature 
apart  from  Jesus  Christ — '  Dead  in  trespasses.' 

The  Apostle  looks  upon  the  world — many-coloured, 
full  of  activity,  full  of  intellectual  stir,  full  of  human 
emotions,  affections,  joys,  sorrows,  fluctuations — as  if 
it  were  one  great  cemetery,  and  on  every  gravestone 
there  were  written  the  same  inscription.  They  all  died 
of  the  same  disease — '  dead  through  sin,'  as  the  original 
more  properly  means. 

Now,  I  dare  say  many  who  are  listening  to  me  are 
saying  in  their  hearts,  '  Oh  !  Exaggeration  !  The  old 
gloomy,  narrow  view  of  human  nature  cropping  up 
again.'  Well,  lam  not  at  all  unwilling  to  acknowledge 
that  truths  like  this  have  very  often  been  preached 
both  with  a  tone  and  in  a  manner  that  repels,  and 
which  is  rightly  chargeable  with  exaggeration  and 
undue  gloom  and  narrowness.  But  let  me  remind  you 
that  it  is  not  the  Evangelical  preacher  nor  the  Apostle 


vs. 4,5]  RESURRECTION  OF  DEAD  SOULS  83 

only  who  have  to  bear  the  condemnation  of  exaggera- 
tion, if  this  representation  of  my  text  be  not  true  to 
facts,  but  it  is  Jesus  Christ  too ;  for  He  says,  '  Except 
ye  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  ye  have  no  life  in  you.'  And  I  think  that  be 
He  divine  or  not  divine,  His  words  about  the  religious 
condition  of  men  go  so  surely  to  the  mark  that  a 
man  must  be  tolerably  impregnable  in  his  self-conceit 
who  charges  Hiin  with  narrowness  and  exaggeration. 
At  all  events,  I  am  content  to  say  after  Him,  and 
I  pray  that  you  and  I,  when  we  accept  Him  as  our 
Teacher,  may  take  not  only  His  gracious,  but  His 
stern,  words,  assured  that  a  deep  graciousness  lies  in 
these,  too,  if  we  rightly  understand  them. 

Let  me  remind  you  that  the  phrase  of  my  text  is  by 
no  means  confined  to  Christian  teachers,  but  that, 
in  common  speech,  we  hear  from  all  high  thinkers 
about  the  lower  type  of  humanity  being  dead  to  the 
loftier  thoughts  in  which  they  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being.  It  has  passed  into  a  commonplace  of 
language  to  speak  of  men  being  '  dead  to  honour,' 
'dead  to  shame,'  'dead'  to  this,  that,  and  the  other 
good  and  noble  and  gracious  thing.  And  the  same 
metaphor,  if  you  like,  lies  here  in  my  text — that  men 
who  have  given  their  w^ills  and  inmost  natures  over  to 
the  dominion  of  self — and  that  is  the  definition  of  sin 
— that  such  men  are,  ipso  facto,  by  reason  of  that  very 
surrender  of  themselves  to  their  worst  selves,  dead  on 
what  I  may  call  the  top  side  of  their  nature,  and  that 
all  that  is  there  is  atrophied  and  dwindling  away. 

Unconsciousnesgjs  one  characteristic  of  death.  And 
oh !  as  I  look  round  I  know  that  there  are  tens,  and 
perhaps  hundreds,  of  men  and  women  who  are  all  but 
utterly  unconscious  of  a  whole  universe  in  which  are 


84      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

the  only  realities,  and  to  which  it  becomes  them  to 
have  access.  You  live,  in  the  physical  sense,  and  move 
and  have  your  being  in  God,  and  yet  your  inmost  life 
would  not  be  altered  one  hair's-breadth  if  there  were  no 
God  at  all.  You  pass  the  most  resplendent  instances 
and  illustrations  of  His  presence,  His  work,  and  you 
see  nothing.  You  are  blind  on  that  side  of  your 
natures  ;  or,  as  my  text  says,  dead  to  the  whole  spiritual 
realm.  Just  as  if  there  were  a  brick  wall  run  against 
some  man's  windows  so  that  he  could  see  nothing  out 
of  them ;  so  you,  by  your  persistent  adherence  to  the 
paltry  present,  the  material,  the  visible,  the  Bclfish, 
have  reared  up  a  wall  against  the  windows  of  your 
souls  that  look  heavenwards  ;  and  of  God,  and  all  the 
lofty  starry  realities  that  cluster  round  Him,  you  are 
as  unconscious  as  the  corpse  upon  its  bier  is  of  the 
sunshine  that  plays  upon  its  pallid  features,  or  of  the 
dew  that  falls  on  its  stiffened  limbs.  Dead,  because 
of  sin — is  that  exaggeration  ?  Is  it  exaggeration  which 
charges  all  but  absolute  unconsciousness  of  spiritual 
realities  upon  worldly  men  like  some  of  you  ? 

And,  then,  take  another  illustration.  Another  of 
the  signatures  of  death  is  inactivity.  And  oh !  what 
faculties  in  some  of  my  friends  listening  to  me  now 
are  shrivelled  and  all  but  extinct !  They  are  dormant, 
at  any  rate,  to  use  another  word,  for  the  death  of  my 
text  is  not  so  absolute  a  death  but  that  a  resurrection 
is  possible,  and  so  dormant  comes  to  express  pretty 
nearly  the  same  thing.  Faculties  of  service,  of 
enthusiasm,  of  life  for  God,  of  noble  obedience  to  Him 
— what  have  you  done  with  them?  Left  them  there 
until  they  have  stiffened  like  an  unused  lock,  or  rusted 
like  the  hinges  of  an  unopened  door ;  and  you  are  as 
little  active  in  all  the  noblest  activities  of  spirit,  which 


T».4,5]  RESURRECTION  OF  DEAD  SOULS  85 

are  activities  in  submission  to  and  dependence  upon 
Him,  as  if  you  were  laid  in  your  coiBn  with  your 
idle  hands  crossed  for  evermore  upon  an  unheaving 
breast. 

There  is  another  illustration  that  I  may  suggest  for 
a  moment.  Decay  is  another  characteristic  and  signa- 
ture of  death.  And  your  best  self,  in  some  of  you,  is 
rotting  to  corruption  by  sin. 

Ay !  Dear  brethren,  when  we  think  of  these  tragedies 
of  suicide  that  are  going  on  in  thousands  of  men  round 
about  us  to-day,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  the  metaphor  and 
the  reality  were  reversed ;  and  instead  of  saying  that 
my  text  is  a  violent  metaphor,  transferring  the  facts 
of  material  death  and  corruption  to  the  spiritual 
realm,  I  am  almost  disposed  to  say  it  is  the  other  way 
about,  and  the  real  death  is  the  death  of  the  spirit ; 
and  the  outer  dissolution  and  unconsciousness  and 
inactivity  of  the  material  body  is  only  a  kind  of  parable 
to  preach  to  men  what  are  the  awful  invisible  facts 
ever  associated  with  the  fact  of  transgression. 

There  are  three  lives  possible  for  each  of  us ;  tMD  of 
them  involuntary,  the  third  requiring  our  consent  and 
effort,  but  all  of  them  sustained  by  the  same  cause. 
The  first  of  them  is  that  which  we  call  life,  the  activity 
and  the  consciousness  of  the  bodily  frame ;  and  that 
continues  as  long  as  the  power  of  God  keeps  the  body 
in  life.  When  He  withdraws  His  hand  there  comes 
what  the  senses  call  death.  Then  there  is  the  natural 
life  of  thinking,  loving,  willing,  enjoying,  sorrowing, 
and  the  like,  and  that  continues  as  long  as  He  who 
is  the  life  and  light  of  men  breathes  into  them  the 
breath  of  that  life.  And  these  two  are  lived  or  died 
largely  without  the  man's  own  consent  or  choice. 

But  there  is  a  third  life,  when  all  that  lower  is  lifted 


86      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

to  God,  and  thinking  and  willing  and  loving  and  enjoy- 
ing and  aspiring  and  trusting  and  obeying,  and  all 
these  natural  faculties  find  their  home  and  their 
consecration  and  their  immortality  in  Him.  That  life 
is  only  lived  by  our  own  will  and  it  is  the  true  life, 
and  the  others  are,  as  I  said,  but  parables,  and 
envelopes,  and  vehicles,  as  it  were,  in  which  this  life 
is  carried,  that  is  more  precious  than  they.  In  the 
physical  realm,  separate  the  body  from  God,  and  it 
dies.  In  the  natural  conscious  life,  separate  the  soul, 
as  we  call  it,  from  God,  and  it  dies.  And  in  the  higher 
region,  separate  the  spirit,  which  is  the  man  grasping 
God,  from  God,  and  he  dies ;  and  that  is  the  real 
death.  Both  the  others  are  nothing  in  comparison 
with  it. 

It  may  co-exist  with  a  large  amount  of  intellectual 
and  other  forms  of  activity,  as  we  see  all  round  about 
us,  and  that  makes  it  only  the  more  ghastly  and  the 
sadder.  You  are  full  of  energy  in  regard  to  all  other 
subjects,  but  smitten  into  torpor  about  the  highest; 
ready  to  live,  to  work,  to  enjoy,  to  think,  to  will,  in  all 
other  directions,  and  utterly  unconscious  and  uncon- 
cerned, or  all  but  utterly  unconscious  and  unconcerned, 
in  regard  to  God. 

Oh !  a  death  which  is  co-existent  with  such  feverish 
intensity  of  life  as  the  most  of  you  are  expending  all 
the  week  at  your  business  and  your  daily  pursuits  is 
among  the  saddest  of  all  the  tragedies  that  angels  are 
called  upon  to  weep  over,  and  that  men  are  fools  enough 
to  enact.  Brother !  If  the  representation  is  a  gloorny  ^"^'^ 
one,  do  not  you  think  that  it  is  better  to  ask  the 
question — Is  it  a  true  one  ?  than,  Is  it  a  cheerful  one  ? 
I  lay  it  upon  your  hearts  that  he  that  lives  to  God 
and  with  God  is  alive  to  the   centre  as  well  as  out 


vt.4,5]  RESURRECTION  OF  DEAD  SOULS  87 

to  the  finger  tips  and  circumference  of  his  visible 
being.  He  that  is  dead  to  God  is  dead  indeed  whilst 
he  lives. 

II.  Now,  notice,  in  the  second  place,  the  pitying 
love  that  looks  down  on  the  cemetery. 

'  God,  who  is  rich  in  mercy,  for  His  great  love 
wherewith  He  loved  us.'  Thus  the  great  truth  that 
is  taught  us  here,  first  of  all,  is  that  that  divine 
love  of  the  Divine  Father  bends  down  over  His  dead 
children  and  cherishes  them  still.  Oh !  you  can  do 
much  in  separating  yourselves  from  God  through 
selfishness,  selfwill,  sensuality,  or  other  forms  of  sin, 
but  there  is  one  thing  you  cannot  do,  you  cannot 
prevent  His  loving  you.  If  I  might  venture  without 
seeming  irreverent,  I  would  point  to  that  pathetic 
page  in  the  Old  Testament  history  where  the  king 
hears  of  the  death,  red-handed  in  treason,  of  his 
darling  son,  and  careless  of  victory  and  forgetful  of 
everything  else,  and  oblivious  that  Absalom  was  a 
rebel,  and  only  remembering  that  he  was  his  boy,  burst 
into  that  monotonous  wail  that  has  come  down  over 
all  the  centuries  as  the  deepest  expression  of  undying 
fatherly  love.  '  Oh !  my  son  Absalom,  my  son,  my 
son  Absalom!  Oh!  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!'  The 
name  and  the  relationship  will  well  up  out  of  the 
Father's  heart,  whatever  the  child's  crime.  We  are  all 
His  Absaloms,  and  though  we  are  dead  in  trespasses 
and  in  sins,  God,  who  is  rich  in  mercy,  bends  over  us 
and  loves  us  with  His  great  love. 

The  Apostle  might  well  expatiate  in  these  two  vary- 
ing forms  of  speech,  both  of  them  intended  to  express 
the  same  thing — 'rich  in  mercy'  and  'great  in  love.' 
For  surely  a  love  which  takes  account  of  the  sin  that 
cannot  repel  it,  and  so  shapes  itself  into  mercy,  sparing, 


88      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  n, 

and  departing  from  the  strict  line  of  retribution  ana 
justice,  is  great.  And  surely  a  mercy  which  refuses  to 
be  provoked  by  seventy  times  seven  transgressions  in 
an  hour,  not  to  say  a  day,  is  rich.  That  mercy  is  wider 
than  all  humanity,  deeper  than  all  sin,  was  before  all 
rebellion,  and  will  last  for  ever.  And  it  is  open  for 
every  soul  of  man  to  receive  if  he  will. 

But  there  is  another  point  to  be  noticed  in  reference 
to  this  wonderful  manifestation  of  the  divine  love 
looking  down  upon  the  myriads  of  men  dead  in  sin, 
and  that  is  that  this  love  shapes  the  divine  action. 
Mark  the  language  of  our  text,  in  which  the  Apostle 
attributes  a  certain  line  of  conduct  in  the  divine 
dealings  with  us  to  the  fact  of  His  great  love.  Because 
'  He  loved  us '  therefore  He  did  so  and  so.  Now  about 
that  I  have  only  two  remarks  to  make,  and  I  will 
make  them  very  briefly.  The  one  is,  here  is  a  demon- 
stration, for  some  of  you  people  who  do  not  believe  in 
the  Evangelical  doctrine  of  an  Atonement  by  the  sacri- 
fice of  Jesus  Christ,  that  the  true  scriptural  represen- 
tation of  that  doctrine  is  not  that  which  caricaturists 
have  represented  it — viz.  that  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus 
Christ  changed  in  any  manner  the  divine  heart  and 
disposition.  It  is  not  as  unfriendly  critics  (who,  per- 
haps, are  not  to  be  so  much  blamed  for  their  unfriend- 
liness as  for  their  superficiality)  would  have  us  to 
believe,  that  the  doctrine  of  Atonement  says  that  God 
loves  because  Christ  died.  But  the  Apostle  who  preached 
that  doctrine  and  looked  upon  it  as  the  very  heart  and 
centre  of  his  message  to  the  world  here  puts  as  the 
true  sequence — Christ  died  because  God  loves.  Jesus 
Christ  said  the  same  thing,  '  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  sent  His  Son,  that  whosoever  belie veth  on 
Him  should  be  saved.* 


Ys.4,5]  RESURRECTION  OF  DEAD  SOULS  89 

And  that  brings  me  to  the  second  of  the  remarks 
which  I  wish  briefly  to  make  —  viz.  this,  that  the 
Divine  Love,  great,  patient,  wonderful,  unrepelled  by 
men's  sin,  as  it  is,  has  to  adopt  a  process  to  reach  its 
end.  God  by  His  love  does  not,  because  He  cannot, 
raise  these  dead  souls  into  a  life  of  righteousness  with- 
out Jesus  Christ.  And  Jesus  Christ  comes  to  be  the 
channel  and  the  medium  through  which  the  love  of 
God  may  attain  its  end.  God's  pitying  love,  because 
*He  is  rich  in  mercy,'  is  not  turned  away  by  man's 
sin ;  and  God's  pitying  love,  because  '  He  is  rich  in 
mercy,'  quickens  men  not  by  a  bare  will,  but  by  the 
mission  and  work  of  His  dear  Son. 

III.  And  so  that  is  the  last  thing  on  which  I  speak 
a  word — viz.  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  souls. 

They  died  of  sin.  That  was  the  disease  that  killed 
them.  They  cannot  be  quickened  unless  the  disease  be 
conquered.  Dear  brethren,  I  have  to  preach — not  to 
argue,  but  to  preach — and  to  press  upon  each  soul  the 
individual  acceptance  of  the  Death  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
being  for  each  of  us,  if  we  will  trust  Him,  the  death  of 
our  death,  and  the  death  of  our  sin.  By  Ilis  great 
sacrifice  and  sufficient  oblation  He  has  borne  the  sins 
of  the  world  and  has  taken  away  their  guilt.  And  in 
Him  the  inmost  reality  of  the  spiritual  death,  and  its 
outermost  parable  of  corporeal  dissolution,  are  equally 
and  simultaneously  overcome.  If  you  will  take  Him 
for  your  Lord  you  will  rise  from  the  death  of  guilt, 
condemnation,  selfishness,  and  sin  into  a  new  life  of 
liberty,  sonship,  consecration,  and  righteousness,  and 
^vill  never  see  death. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
available  for  all  of  us.  If  we  will  put  our  trust  in  Him, 
His  life  will  pass  into  our  deadness;  He  Himself  will 


90      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.il 

vitalise  our  being,  dormant  capacities  will  be  quickened 
and  brought  into  blessed  activity,  a  new  direction  will 
be  given  to  the  old  faculties,  desires,  aspirations, 
emotions  of  our  nature.  The  will  will  tower  into  new 
power  because  it  obeys.  The  heart  will  throb  with  a 
better  life  because  it  has  grasped  a  love  that  cannot 
change  and  will  never  die.  And  the  thinking  power 
will  be  brought  into  living,  personal  contact  with  the 
personal  Truth,  so  that  whatsoever  darknesses  and 
problems  may  still  be  left,  at  the  centre  there  will  be 
light  and  satisfaction  and  peace.  You  will  live  if  you 
trust  Christ  and  let  Him  be  your  Life. 

And  if  thus,  by  simple  faith  in  Him,  knowing  that 
the  power  of  His  atoning  death  has  destroyed  the 
burden  of  our  guilt  and  condemnation,  and  knowing 
the  quickening  influences  of  His  constraining  love  as 
drawing  us  to  love  new  things  and  make  us  new 
creatures,  we  receive  into  our  inmost  spirits  '  the  law  of 
the  spirit  of  life '  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  are 
thereby  made  '  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death,'  then 
it  is  only  a  question  of  time,  when  the  vitalising  force 
shall  flow  into  all  the  cracks  and  crannies  of  our  being 
and  deliver  us  wholly  from  the  bondage  of  corruj)tion 
in  the  outer  as  well  as  in  the  inner  life;  for  they 
who  have  learned  that  Christ  is  the  life  of  their  lives 
upon  earth  can  never  cease  their  appropriation  of 
the  fulness  of  His  quickening  power  until  He  has 
'  changed  the  body  of  their  humiliation  into  the  like- 
ness of  the  body  of  His  glory,  according  to  the  working 
whereby  He  is  able  to  subdue  even  all  things  unto 
Himself.' 

Brethren!  He  Himself  has  said,  and  His  words  I 
beseech  you  to  remember  though  you  forget  all  mine, 
*  He  that  believeth  in  Me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet 


T8.4,5]     «THE  RICHES  OF  GRACE'  91 

shall  he  live,  and  he  that  liveth  and  believeth  in  Mo 
shall  never  die.'    '  Believeat  thou  this  ? ' 


'THE  RICHES  OF  GRACE' 

•  That  in  the  ages  to  come  He  might  show  the  exceeding  riches  of  His  grace  in 
kindness  towards  us  in  Christ  Jesus.'— Eph.  ii.  7. 

One  very  striking  characteristic  of  this  epistle  is  its 
frequent  reference  to  God's  purposes,  and  what,  for 
want  of  a  better  word,  we  must  call  His  motives,  in 
giving  us  Jesus  Christ.  The  Apostle  seems  to  rise  even 
higher  than  his  ordinary  height,  while  he  gazes  up  to 
the  inaccessible  light,  and  with  calm  certainty  proclaims 
not  only  what  God  has  done,  but  why  He  has  done  it. 
Through  all  the  earlier  portions  of  this  letter,  the 
things  on  earth  are  contemplated  in  the  light  of  the 
things  in  heaven.  The  great  work  of  redemption  is 
illuminated  by  the  thought  of  the  will  and  meaning  of 
God  therein ;  for  example,  we  read  in  Chapter  i.  that 
He  'hath  blessed  us  with  all  spiritual  blessings  in 
Christ,  according  as  He  hath  chosen  us  in  Him,'  and 
immediately  after  we  read  that  He  '  has  predestinated 
us  unto  the  adoption  of  children  by  Jesus  Christ  accord- 
ing to  the  good  pleasure  of  His  will.'  Soon  after,  we 
hear  that  '  He  hath  revealed  to  us  the  mystery  of  His 
will,  according  to  His  good  pleasure  which  He  purposed 
in  Himself ' ;  and  that  our  predestination  to  an  inherit- 
ance in  Christ  is  'according  to  the  purpose  of  Him 
who  worketh  all  things  after  the  counsel  of  His  own 
will.' 

Not  only  so,  but  the  motive  or  reason  for  the  divine 
action  in  the  gift  of  Christ  is  brought  out  in  a  rich 
variety  of  expression  as  being  'the  praise  of  the  glory 


92      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  il 

of  His  grace '  (1-6),  or  '  that  He  might  gather  together 
ill  one  all  things  in  Christ'  (1-10),  or  that  *we  should 
be  to  the  praise  of  His  glory'  (1-12),  or  that '  unto  the 
principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly  places  might  be 
known  by  the  Church  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God.' 

In  like  manner  our  text  follows  a  sublime  statement 
of  what  has  been  bestowed  upon  men  in  Jesus,  with 
an  equally  sublime  insight  into  the  divine  purpose  of 
thereby  showing  '  the  exceeding  riches  of  His  grace.* 
Such  heights  are  not  for  our  unaided  traversing;  it  is 
neither  reverent  nor  safe  to  speculate,  and  still  less  to 
dogmatise,  concerning  the  meaning  of  the  divine  acts, 
but  here,  at  all  events,  we  have,  as  I  believe,  not  a  man 
making  unwarranted  assertions  about  God's  purposes, 
but  God  Himself  by  a  man,  letting  us  see  so  far  into 
the  depths  of  Deity  as  to  know  the  very  deepest  mean- 
ing of  His  very  greatest  acts,  and  when  God  speaks,  it 
is  neither  reverent  nor  safe  to  refuse  to  listen. 

I.  The  purpose  of  God  in  Christ  is  the  display  of  His 
grace. 

Of  course  we  cannot  speak  of  motives  in  the  divine 
mind  as  in  ours;  they  imply  a  previous  state  of 
indecision  and  an  act  of  choice,  from  which  comes  the 
slow  emerging  of  a  resolve  like  that  of  the  moon  from 
the  sea.  A  given  end  being  considered  by  us  desir- 
able, we  then  cast  about  for  means  to  secure  it,  which 
again  implies  limitation  of  power.  Still  we  can  speak 
of  God's  motives,  if  only  we  understand,  as  this  epistle 
puts  it  so  profoundly,  that  His  '  is  an  eternal  purpose 
which  He  purposed  in  Himself,'  which  never  began  to 
be  formed,  and  was  not  formed  by  reason  of  anything 
external. 

With  that  caution  Paul  would  have  us  think  that 
God's  chiefest  purpose  in  all  the  wondrous  facts  which 


V.7]  *THE  RICHES  OF  GRACE'  93 

make  «p  the  Gospel  is  the  setting  forth  of  Himself, 
and  that  the  chiefest  part  of  Himself,  which  He  desires 
that  all  men  should  come  to  know,  is  the  glory  of  His 
grace.  Of  course  very  many  and  various  reasons  for 
these  acts  may  be  alleged,  but  this  is  the  deepest  of 
them  all.  It  has  often  been  misunderstood  and  made 
into  a  very  hard  and  horrible  doctrine,  which  really 
means  little  else  than  all-mighty  selfishness,  but  it  is 
really  a  most  blessed  one ;  it  is  the  proclamation  in 
tenderest,  most  heart-melting  fashion  of  the  truth 
that  God  is  Love,  and  therefore  delights  in  imparting 
that  which  is  His  creatures'  life  and  blessedness ;  it 
bids  us  think  that  He,  too,  amidst  the  blessedness  of 
His  infinite  Being,  knows  the  joy  of  communicating 
which  makes  so  large  a  part  of  the  blessedness  of  our 
finite  selves,  and  that  He,  too,  is  capable  of  being 
touched  and  gladdened  by  the  joy  of  expression.  As 
an  artist  in  his  noblest  work  paints  or  chisels  simply 
for  love  of  pouring  out  his  soul,  so,  but  in  infinitely 
loftier  fashion,  the  great  Artist  delights  to  manifest 
Himself,  and  in  manifesting  to  communicate  some- 
what of  Himself.  Creation  is  divine  self-revelation, 
and  we  might  say,  with  all  reverence,  that  God  acts 
as  birds  sing,  and  fountains  leap,  and  stars  shine. 

But  our  text  leads  us  still  farther  into  mysteries  of 
glory,  when  it  defines  what  it  is  in  God  that  he  most 
desires  to  set  forth.  It  is  the  '  exceeding  riches  of 
Grace,'  in  which  wonderful  expression  we  note  the 
Apostle's  passionate  accumulation  of  epithets  which 
he  yet  feels  to  be  altogether  inadequate  to  his  theme. 
It  would  carry  us  too  far  to  attempt  to  bring  out  the 
whole  wealth  contained  in  these  words  which  glide  so 
easily  over  unthinking  lips,  but  we  may  lovingly  dwell 
for  a    few  moments   upon    them.      Grace,    in    Paul's 


94      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

language,  moans  love  lavished  upon  the  undeserving 
and  sinful,  a  love  which  is  not  drawn  forth  by  the 
perception  of  any  excellence  in  its  objects,  but  wells 
up  and  out  like  a  fountain,  by  reason  of  the  impulse 
in  its  subject,  and  which  in  itself  contains  and  bestows 
all  good  and  blessing.  There  may  be,  as  this  very 
letter  shows,  other  aspects  of  the  divine  nature  which 
God  is  glad  that  man  should  know.  His  power  and 
His  wisdom  have  their  noblest  illustration  in  the  work 
of  Jesus,  and  are  less  conspicuously  manifested  in  all 
His  work ;  but  His  grace  is  shrined  in  Christ  alone, 
and  from  Him  flows  forth  into  a  thirsty  world.  That 
love,  'unmerited  and  free,'  holds  in  solution  power, 
wisdom  and  all  the  other  physical  or  metaphysical 
perfections  belonging  to  God  with  all  their  energies. 
It  is  the  elixir  in  which  they  are  all  contained,  the 
molten  splendour  into  which  have  been  dissolved  gold 
and  jewels  and  all  precious  things.  When  we  look  at 
Christ,  we  see  the  divinest  thing  in  God,  and  that  is 
His  grace.  The  Christ  who  shows  us  and  certifies 
to  us  the  grace  of  God  must  surely  be  more  than  man. 
Men  look  at  Him  and  see  it;  He  shows  us  that  grace 
because  He  was  full  of  grace  and  truth. 

But  Paul  is  here  not  propounding  theological  dogmas, 
but  pouring  out  a  heart  full  of  personal  experience, 
and  so  adds  yet  other  words  to  express  what  he 
himself  has  found  in  the  Divine  Grace,  and  speaks 
of  its  riches.  He  has  learned  fully  to  trust  its  fulness, 
and  in  his  own  daily  life  has  had  the  witness  of  its 
inexhaustible  abundance,  which  remains  the  same 
after  all  its  gifts.  It  '  operates  unspent.'  That  con- 
tinually self-communicating  love  pours  out  in  no 
narrower  stream  to  its  last  recipient  than  to  its  first. 
All  'eat  and  are  filled,'  and  after  they  are  satisfied, 


V.7]  'THE  RICHES  OF  GRACE'  95 

twelve  baskets  full  of  fragments  are  taken  up.  These 
riches  are  exceeding ;  they  surpass  all  human  concep- 
tion, all  parallel,  all  human  needs ;  they  are  properly 
transcendent. 

This,  then,  is  what  God  would  have  us  know  of 
Himself.  So  His  love  is  at  once  the  motive  of  His 
great  message  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  the  whole 
contents  of  the  message,  like  some  fountain,  the  force 
of  whose  pellucid  waters  cleanses  the  earth,  and  rushes 
into  the  sunshine,  being  at  once  the  reason  for  the 
flow  and  that  which  flows.  God  reveals  because  He 
loves,  and  His  love  is  that  which  He  reveals. 

II.  The  great  manifestation  of  grace  is  God's  kind- 
ness to  us  in  Christ. 

All  the  revelation  of  God  in  Creation  and  Providence 
carries  the  same  message,  but  it  is  often  there  hard  to 
decipher,  like  some  half-obliterated  inscription  in  a 
strange  tongue.  In  Jesus  the  writing  is  legible,  con- 
tinuous, and  needs  no  elaborate  commentary  to  make  its 
meaning  intelligible.  But  we  may  note  that  what  the 
Apostle  founds  on  here  is  not  so  much  Christ  in  Him- 
self, as  that  which  men  receive  in  Christ.  As  he  puts 
it  in  another  part  of  this  epistle,  it  is  'through  the 
Church '  that  '  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly 
places'  are  made  to  'know  the  manifold  wisdom  of 
God.'  It  is  '  His  kindness  towards  us '  by  which  '  to  the 
ages  to  come,'  is  made  known  the  exceeding  riches  of 
grace,  and  that  kindness  can  be  best  estimated  by 
thinking  what  we  were,  namely,  dead  in  trespasses  and 
sins ;  what  we  are,  namely,  quickened  together  in 
Christ;  raised  up  with  Him,  and  with  Him  made  to 
sit  in  heavenly  places,  as  the  immediately  preceding 
clauses  express  it.  All  this  marvellous  transformation 
of  conditions  and  of  self  is  realised  '  in  Christ  Jesus.' 


96      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

These  three  words  recur  over  and  over  again  in  this 
profound  epistle,  and  may  be  taken  as  its  very  key- 
note. It  would  carry  us  beyond  all  limits  to  deal  with 
the  various  uses  and  profound  meanings  of  this  phrase 
in  this  letter,  but  we  may  at  least  point  out  how 
intimately  and  inseparably  it  is  intertwined  with  the 
other  aspect  of  our  relations  to  Christ  in  which  He  is 
mainly  regarded  as  dying  for  us,  and  may  press  upon 
you  that  these  two  are  not,  as  they  have  sometimes 
been  taken  to  be,  antagonistic  but  complementary. 
We  shall  never  understand  the  depths  of  the  one 
Apostolic  conception  unless  we  bring  it  into  closest 
connection  with  the  other.  Christ  is  for  us  only  if  we 
are  in  Christ ;  we  are  in  Christ  only  because  He  died 
for  us. 

God's  kindness  is  all  *  in  Christ  Jesus  * ;  in  Him  is  the 
great  channel  through  which  His  love  comes  to  men, 
the  river  of  God  which  is  full  of  water.  And  that 
kindness  is  realised  by  us  when  we  are  *in  Christ.' 
Separated  from  Him  we  do  not  possess  it;  joined  to 
Him  as  we  may  be  by  true  faith  in  Him,  it  is  ours,  and 
with  it  all  the  blessings  which  it  brings  into  our  else 
empty  and  thirsting  hearts.  Now  all  this  sets  in 
strong  light  the  dignity  and  work  of  Christian  men; 
the  profundity  and  clearness  of  their  religious  char- 
acter is  the  great  sign  to  the  world  of  the  love  of  God. 
The  message  of  Christ  to  man  lacks  one  chief  evidence 
of  its  worth  if  they  who  profess  to  have  received  it  do 
not,  in  their  lives,  show  its  value.  The  characters  of 
Christian  people  are  in  every  age  the  clearest  and 
most  effectual  witnesses  of  the  power  of  the  Gospel. 
God's  honour  is  in  their  hands.  The  starry  heavens 
are  best  seen  by  reflecting  telescopes,  which,  in  their 
field,  mirror  the  brightness  above. 


V.7]  'THE  RICHES  OF  GRACE'  97 

HI.  The  manifestation  of  God  through  men  'in 
Christ '  is  for  all  ages. 

In  our  text  the  ages  to  come  open  up  into  a  vista  of 
undefined  duration,  and,  just  as  in  another  place  in 
this  epistle,  Paul  regards  the  Church  as  witnessing  to 
the  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly  places,  so 
here  he  regards  it  as  the  perennial  evidence  to  all 
generations  of  the  ever-flowing  riches  of  God's  grace. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  Apostle's  earlier  expecta- 
tions of  the  speedy  coming  of  the  day  of  the  Lord, 
here  he  obviously  expects  the  world  to  last  through  a 
long  stretch  of  undefined  time,  and  for  all  its  changing 
epochs  to  have  an  unchanging  light.  That  standing 
witness,  borne  by  men  in  Christ,  of  the  grace  which 
has  been  so  kind  to  them,  is  not  to  be  antiquated  nor 
superseded,  but  is  as  valid  to-day  as  when  these  words 
gushed  from  the  heart  of  Paul.  Eyes  which  cannot 
look  upon  the  sun  can  see  it  as  a  golden  glory,  tinging 
the  clouds  which  lie  cradled  around  it.  And  as  long  as 
the  world  lasts,  so  long  will  Christian  men  be  God's 
witnesses  to  it. 

There  are  then  two  questions  of  infinite  importance 
to  us — do  we  show  in  character  and  conduct  the  grace 
which  we  have  received  by  reverently  submitting  our- 
selves to  its  transforming  energy?  We  need  to  be 
very  close  to  Him  for  ourselves  if  we  would  worthily 
witness  to  others  of  what  we  have  found  Him  to  be. 
We  have  but  too  sadly  marred  our  witness,  and  have 
been  like  dim  reflectors  round  a  lamp  which  have 
received  but  little  light  from  it,  and  have  communi- 
cated even  less  than  we  have  received.  Do  we  see  the 
grace  that  shines  so  brightly  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  God 
longs  that  we  should  so  see  ;  He  calls  us  by  all  endear- 
ments and  by  loving  threats  to  look  to  that  Incarnation 

u 


98      EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

of  Himself.  And  when  we  lift  our  eyes  to  behold,  what 
is  it  that  meets  our  gaze?  Intolerable  light?  The 
blaze  of  the  white  throne?  Power  that  crushes  our 
puny  might  ?  No  !  the  *  exceeding  riches  of  grace.'  The 
voice  cries,  'Behold  your  God!'  and  what  we  see  is, 
•In  the  midst  of  the  throne  a  lamb  as  it  had  been  slain.' 


SALVATION :  GRACE :  FAITH 

'By  grace  have  ye  been  saved  through  faith  ;  and  that  not  of  yourselves :  It  la 
the  gift  of  God.'— Eph.  ii.  8  (R.V.). 

Here  are  three  of  the  key-words  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment—'grace,'  '  saved,'  'faith.'  Once  these  terms  were 
strange  and  new ;  now  they  are  old  and  threadbare. 
Once  they  were  like  lava,  glowing  and  cast  up  from 
the  central  depths ;  but  it  is  a  long  while  since  the 
eruption,  and  the  blocks  have  got  cold,  and  the  corners 
have  been  rubbed  off  them.  I  am  afraid  that  some 
people,  when  they  read  such  a  text,  w^ill  shrug  the 
shoulder  of  weariness,  and  think  that  they  are  in  for 
a  dreary  sermon. 

But  the  more  familiar  a  word  is,  the  more  likely 
are  common  ideas  about  it  to  be  hazy.  "We  substitute 
acquaintance  with  the  sound  for  penetration  into  the 
sense.  A  frond  of  sea-weed,  as  long  as  it  is  in  the 
ocean,  unfolds  its  delicate  films  and  glows  with  its 
subdued  colours.  Take  it  out,  and  it  is  hard  and  brown 
and  ugly,  and  you  have  to  plunge  it  into  the  water 
again  before  you  see  its  beauty.  So  "with  these  well- 
worn  Christian  terms ;  you  have  to  put  them  back,  by 
meditation  and  thought,  especially  as  to  their  bearing 
on  yourself,  in  order  to  understand  their  significance 


V.  8]       SALVATION  :  GRACE  :  FAITH       99 

and  to  feel  their  power.  And,  although  it  is  very  hard, 
I  want  to  try  and  do  that  for  a  few  moments  with  this 
grand  thought  that  lies  in  my  text. 

I.  Here  we  have  the  Christian  view  of  man's  deepest 
need,  and  God's  greatest  gift. 

'Ye  have  been  saved.'  Now,  as  I  have  said,  'saved,' 
and  '  salvation,'  and  '  Saviour,'  are  all  threadbare 
words.  Let  us  try  to  grasp  the  whole  throbbing  mean- 
ing that  is  in  them.  Well,  to  begin  with,  and  in  its 
original  and  lowest  application,  this  whole  set  of 
expressions  is  applied  to  physical  danger  from  which 
it  delivers,  and  physical  disease  which  it  heals.  So, 
in  the  Gospels,  for  instance,  you  find  '  Thy  faith  hath 
made  thee  whole' — literally,  ^ saved  thee.'  And  yon 
hear  one  of  the  Apostles  crying,  in  an  excess  of  terror 
and  collapse  of  faith, '  Save  !  Master !  we  perish  ! '  The 
two  notions  that  are  conveyed  in  our  familiar  expres- 
sion 'safe  and  sound,'  both  lie  in  the  word — deliverance 
from  danger,  and  healing  of  disease. 

Then,  when  you  lift  it  up  into  the  loftier  region, 
into  which  Christianity  buoyed  it  up,  the  same  double 
meaning  attaches  to  it.  The  Christian  salvation  is,  on 
its  negative  side,  a  deliverance  from  something  impend- 
ing—peril— and  a  healing  of  something  infecting  us — 
the  sickness  of  sin. 

It  is  a  deliverance  ;  what  from?  Take,  in  the  briefest 
possible  language,  three  sayings  of  Scripture  to  answer 
that  question — what  am  I  to  be  saved  from  ?  '  His  name 
shall  be  called  Jesus,  for  He  shall  save  His  peoj)le  from 
their  sins.'  Ho '  delivers ' — or  saves — '  us  from  the  wrath 
to  come.'  He  'saves  a  soul  from  death.'  Sin,  wrath 
death,  death  spiritual  as  well  as  physical,  these  are 
the  dangers  which  lie  in  wait ;  and  the  enemies  which 
have  laid  their  grip  upon  us.    And  from  these,  as  the 


100    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

shepherd  drags  the  kid  from  the  claws  of  the  lion  or 
the  bear's  hug,  the  salvation  of  the  Gospel  wrenches 
and  rescues  men. 

The  same  general  conceptions  emerge,  if  we  notice, 
on  the  other  side — what  are  the  things  which  the  New 
Testament  sets  forth  as  the  opposites  of  its  salvation  ? 
Take,  again,  a  brief  reference  to  Scripture  words :  '  The 
Son  of  Man  came  not  to  condemn  the  world,  but  that 
the  world  through  Him  might  be  saved.'  So  the  anti- 
thesis is  between  judgment  or  condemnation  on  the 
one  hand,  and  salvation  on  the  other.  That  suggests 
thoughts  substantially  identical  with  the  preceding 
but  still  more  solemn,  as  bringing  in  the  prospect  a 
tribunal  and  a  judge.  The  Gospel  then  reveals  the 
Mighty  Power  that  lifts  itself  between  us  and  judg- 
ment, the  Mighty  Power  that  intervenes  to  prevent 
absolute  destruction,  the  Power  which  saves  from  sin, 
from  wrath,  from  death. 

Along  with  them  we  may  take  the  other  thought, 
that  salvation,  as  the  New  Testament  understands  it, 
is  not  only  the  rescue  and  deliverance  of  a  man  from 
evils  conceived  to  lie  round  about  him,  and  to  threaten 
his  being  from  without,  but  that  it  is  his  healing  from 
evils  which  have  so  wrought  themselves  into  his  very 
being,  and  infected  his  whole  nature,  as  that  the 
emblem  for  them  is  a  sickness  unto  death  for  the 
healing  from  which  this  mighty  Physician  comes. 
These  are  the  negative  sides  of  this  great  Christian 
thought. 

But  the  New  Testament  salvation  is  more  than  a 
shelter,  more  than  an  escape.  It  not  only  trammels 
up  evil  possibilities,  and  prevents  them  from  falling 
upon  men's  heads,  but  it  introduce*  all  good.  It  not 
only  strips  off  the  poisoned  robe,  but  it  invests  with  a 


V.  8]       SALVATION  :  GRACE  ;  FAITH       101 

royal  garb.  It  is  not  only  negatively  the  withdrawal 
from  the  power,  and  the  setting  above  the  reach,  of  all 
evil,  in  the  widest  sense  of  that  word,  physical  and 
moral,!' but  it  is  the  endowment  with  every  good,  in 
the  widest  sense  of  that  word,  physical  and  moral, 
which  man  is  capable  of  receiving,  or  God  has  wealth 
to  bestow.  And  this  positive  significance  of  the 
Christian  salvation,  which  includes  not  only  pardon, 
and  favour,  and  purity,  and  blessedness  here  in  germ, 
and  sure  and  certain  hope  of  an  overwhelming  glory 
hereafter— this  is  all  suggested  to  us  by  the  fact  that 
in  Scripture,  more  than  once,  to  'have  everlasting  life,' 
and  to  'enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God,'  are  employed 
as  equivalent  and  alternative  expressions  for  beiug 
saved  with  the  salvation  of  God. 

And  that  leads  me  to  another  point — my  text,  as 
those  of  you  who  have  used  the  Revised  Version  will 
observe,  is  there  slightly  modified  in  translation,  and 
reads  'Ye  have  been  saved,' — a  past  act,  done  once,  and  l/^ 
with  abiding  present  consequences,  which  are  realised 
progressively  in  the  Christian  life,  and  reach  forward 
into  infinitude.  So  the  Scripture  sometimes  speaks  of 
salvation  as  past,  '  He  saved  us  by  His  mercy ' :  some- 
times of  it  as  present  and  progressive,  'The  Lord 
added  to  the  Church  daily  those  that  were  (in  process 
of)  being  saved':  sometimes  of  it  as  future,  'now 
is  our  salvation  nearer  than  when  we  believed.'  In 
that  future  all  that  is  involved  in  the  word  will  be 
evolved  from  it  in  blessed  experience  onwards  through 
eternity. 

I  have  said  that  we  should  try  to  make  an  effort  to 
fathom  the  depth  of  meaning  in  this  and  other  familiar 
commonplace  terms  of  Scripture.  But  no  effort  prior 
to  experience  will  ever  fathom  it.     There  was  in  tho 


102    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

papers  some  time  ago  an  account  of  some  extraordinary 
deep-sea  soundings  that  have  been  made  away  down 
in  the  South  PaciQc,  29,400  feet  and  no  bottom,  and  the 
wire  broke.  The  highest  peak  of  the  Himalayas  might 
be  put  into  that  abyss,  and  there  would  be  hundreds 
of  feet  between  it  and  the  surface.  He  '  casts  all  our 
sins/  mountainous  as  they  are,  behind  His  back  '  into 
the  depths  of  the  sea ' ;  and  no  plummet  that  man 
can  drop  will  ever  reach  its  profound  abyss.  'Thy 
judgments  are  a  great  deep,'  and  deeper  than  the 
judgments  is  the  dej)th  of  Thy  salvation. 

And  now,  brethren,  before  I  go  further,  notice  the — 
I  was  going  to  say  theory,  but  that  is  a  cold  word — the 
facts  of  man's  condition  and  need  that  underlie  this 
great  Christian  term  of  salvation — viz.  we  are  all  in 
deadly  peril ;  we  are  all  sick  of  a  fatal  disease.  '  Ah ! ' 
you  say,  '  that  is  Paul.'  Yes  !  it  is  Paul.  But  it  is  not 
Paul  only  ;  it  is  Paul's  Master,  and,  I  hope,  your  Master ; 
for  He  not  only  spoke  loving,  gentle  words  ot  and 
about  men,  and  not  only  was  grace  poured  into  His 
lips,  but  there  is  another  side  to  His  utterances.  No 
one  ever  spoke  sadder,  sterner  words  about  the  real 
condition  of  men  than  Jesus  Christ  did.  Lost  sheep, 
lost  coins,  prodigal  sons,  builders  of  houses  on  the 
sand  that  are  destined  to  be  blown  down  and  flooded 
away,  men  in  danger  of  an  undying  worm  and  un- 
quenchable fire — these  are  parts  of  Christ's  representa- 
tions of  the  condition  of  humanity,  and  these  are  the 
conceptions  that  underlie  this  great  thought  of  salva- 
tion as  being  man's  deepest  need. 

It  goes  far  deeper  down  than  any  of  the  superficial 
constructions  of  what  humanity  requires,  which  are 
found  among  non-Christian,  social  and  economical, 
and  intellectual  and  political  reformers.    It  includes 


V.  8]       SALVATION  :  GRACE  :  FAITH       103 

all  that  is  true  in  the  estimate  of  any  of  these  people, 
and  it  supplies  all  that  they  aim  at.  But  it  goes  far 
beyond  them.  And  as  they  stand  pottering  round  the 
patient,  and  administering — what  shall  I  say?  'pills 
for  the  earthquake,'  as  we  once  heard — it  comes  and 
brushes  them  aside  and  says,  '  Physicians  of  no  value  ! 
here  is  the  thing  that  is  wanted — salvation  that  comes 
from  God,' 

Brother  !  it  is  what  you  need.  Do  not  be  led  away  by 
the  notion  that  wealth,  or  culture,  or  anything  less  than 
Christ's  gift  to  men  will  meet  your  necessities.  If  once 
we  catch  a  glimpse  of  what  we  really  are,  there  will  be 
no  words  wanted  to  enforce  the  priceless  value  of  the 
salvation  that  the  Gospel  offers.  It  is  sure  to  be  an 
uninteresting  word  and  thing  to  a  man  who  does  not 
feel  himself  to  be  a  sinner.  It  is  sure  to  be  of  perennial 
worth  to  a  man  who  does.  Life-belts  lie  unnoticed  on 
the  cabin-shelf  above  the  berth  as  long  as  the  sun  is 
bright,  and  the  sea  calm,  and  everything  goes  well; 
but  when  the  ship  gets  on  the  rocks  the  passengers 
fight  to  get  them.  If  you  know  yourself,  you  will 
know  that  salvation  is  what  you  need. 

II.  Here  we  have  the  Christian  unfolding  of  the 
source  of  salvation. 

'  By  grace  ye  have  been  saved.'  There  is  another 
threadbare  word.  It  is  employed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment with  a  very  considerable  width  of  signification, 
which  we  do  not  need  to  attend  to  here.  But,  in  regard 
of  the  present  context,  let  me  just  point  out  that  the'. 
main  idea  conveyed  by  the  word  is  that  of  favour,  or 
lovingkinduess,  or  goodwill,  especially  when  directed 
to  inferiors,  and  most  eminently  when  given  to  those 
who  do  not  deserve  it,  but  deserve  its  opposite.  *  Grace  "^ 
is  love  that  stoops  and  that  requites,  not  according  to 


104     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

desert,  but  bestows  upon  those  who  deserve  nothing  of 
the  kind ;  so  when  the  Apostle  declares  that  the  source 
of  salvation  is  '  grace,'  he  declares  two  things.  One  is 
that  the  fountain  of  all  our  deliverance  from  sin,  and 
of  our  healing  of  our  sicknesses,  lies  in  the  deep  heart 
of  God,  from  which  it  wells  up  undrawn,  unmotived, 
uncaused  by  anything  except  His  own  infinite  loving- 
kindness.  People  have  often  presented  the  New  Testa- 
ment teaching  about  salvation  aa  if  it  implied  that 
God's  love  was  brought  to  man  because  Jesus  Christ 
died,  and  turned  the  divine  affections.  That  is  not 
New  Testament  teaching.  Christ's  death  is  not  the 
cause  of  God's  love,  but  God's  love  is  the  cause  of 
Christ's  death.  '  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave 
His  only  begotten  Son.* 

When  we  hear  in  the  Old  Testament,  •  I  am  that  I 
am,'  we  may  apply  it  to  this  great  subject.  For  that 
declaration  of  the  very  inmost  essence  of  the  divine 
nature  is  not  merely  the  declaration,  in  half  meta- 
physical terms,  of  a  self-substituting,  self-determining 
Being,  high  above  limitation  and  time  and  change,  but 
it  is  a  declaration  that  when  He  loves  He  loves  freely 
and  unmodified  save  by  the  constraint  of  His  own 
(/  Being.  Just  as  the  light,  because  it  is  light  and  must 
radiate,  falls  upon  dunghills  and  diamonds,  upon 
black  rocks  and  white  snow,  upon  ice-peaks  and  fer- 
tile fields,  so  the  great  fountain  of  the  Divine  Grace 
pours  out  upon  men  by  reason  only  of  its  own  con- 
tinual tendency  to  communicate  its  own  fulness  and 
blessedness. 

There  follows  from  that  the  other  thought,  on  which 
the  Apostle  mainly  dwells  in  our  context,  that  the 
salvation  which  we  need,  and  may  have,  is  not  won  by 
desert,  but  is  given  as  a  gift.    Mark  the  last  words  of 


T.  8]       SALVATION  :  GRACE  :  FAITH       105 

my  text — '  that  not  of  yourselves  it  is  the  gift  of  God.' 
They  have  often  been  misunderstood,  as  if  they  referred 
to  the  faith  which  is  mentioned  just  before.  But  that 
is  a  plain  misconception  of  the  Apostle's  meaning,  and 
is  contradicted  by  the  whole  context.  It  is  not  faith 
that  is  the  gift  of  God,  but  it  is  salvation  by  grace. 
That  is  plain  if  you  will  read  on  to  the  next  verse. 
'  By  grace  are  ye  saved  through  faith,  and  that  not  of 
yourselves;  it  is  the  gift  of  God;  not  of  works  lest 
any  man  should  boast.'  What  is  it  that  is  'not  of 
works'?  Faith?  certainly  not.  Nobody  would  ever 
have  thought  it  worth  while  to  say,  'faith  is  not  of 
works,'  because  nobody  would  have  said  that  it  was. 
The  two  clauses  necessarily  refer  to  the  same  thing, 
and  if  the  latter  of  them  must  refer  to  salvation  by 
grace,  so  must  the  former.  Thus,  the  Apostle's  mean- 
ing is  that  we  get  salvation,  not  because  we  work  for 
it  but  because  God  gives  it  as  a  free  gift,  for  which 
we  have  nothing  to  render,  and  which  we  can  never 
deserve. 

Now,  I  am  sure  that  there  are  some  of  you  who  are 
saying  to  yourselves,  '  This  is  that  old,  threadbare, 
commonplace  preaching  again ! '  Well !  shame  on  us 
preachers  if  we  have  made  a  living  Gospel  into  a  dead 
theology.  And  shame  no  less  on  you  hearers  if  by  you 
the  words  that  should  be  good  news  that  would  make 
the  tongue  of  the  dumb  sing,  and  the  lame  man  leap 
as  a  hart,  have  been  petrified  and  fossilised  into  a  mere 
dogma. 

I  know  far  better  than  you  do  how  absolutely  in- 
adequate all  my  words  are,  but  I  want  to  bring  it  to 
you  and  to  lay  it  not  on  your  heads  only  but  on  your 
hearts,  as  the  good  news  that  we  all  need,  that  we  have 
not  to  buy,  that  we  have  not  to  work  to  get  salvation. 


106    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [cH.n. 

but  that  having  got  it  we  have  to  work  thereafter. 
'What  shall  we  do  that  we  might  work  the  works 
of  God  ? '  A  whole  series  of  diverse,  long,  protracted, 
painful  toils?  Christ  swept  away  the  question  by- 
striking  out  the  '  s '  at  the  end  of  the  word,  and 
answered,  '  This  is  the  work '  (not  '  works ')  '  of  God,' 
the  one  thing  which  will  open  out  into  all  heroism 
and  practical  obedience,  'that  ye  believe  on  Him  to 
whom  He  hath  sent.' 

III.  That  leads  me  to  the  last  point — viz.  the  Christian 
requirement  of  the  condition  of  salvation. 

Note  the  precision  of  the  Apostle's  prepositions  :  'Ye 
have  been  saved  hy  grace ' ;  there  is  the  source — '  Ye 
have  been  saved  by  grace,  through  faith  ' — there  is  the 
medium,  the  instrument,  or,  if  I  may  so  say,  the  channel ; 
or,  to  put  it  into  other  words,  the  condition  by  which 
the  salvation  which  has  its  source  in  the  deep  heart  of 
God  pours  its  waters  into  my  empty  heart.  '  Through 
faith,'  another  threadbare  M-ord,  which,  withal,  has 
been  dreadfully  darkened  by  many  comments,  and  has 
unfortunately  been  so  represented  as  that  people  fancy 
it  is  some  kind  of  special  attitude  of  mind  and  heart, 
which  is  only  brought  to  bear  in  reference  to  Christ's 
Gospel.  It  is  a  thousand  pities,  one  sometimes  thinks, 
that  the  word  was  not  translated  '  trust '  instead  of 
'faith,'  and  then  we  should  have  understood  that 
it  was  not  a  theological  virtue  at  all,  but  just  the 
common  thing  that  we  all  know  so  well,  which  is 
the  cement  of  human  society  and  the  blessedness  of 
human  affection,  and  which  only  needs  to  be  lifted, 
as  a  plant  that  had  been  running  along  the  ground, 
and  had  its  tendrils  bruised  and  its  fruit  marred  might 
be  lifted,  and  twined  round  the  pillar  of  God's  throne, 
in   order   to  grow  up  and   bear  fruit  that   shall   be 


T.  8]      SALVATION  :  GRACE  ;  FAITH       107 

found  after  many  days  unto  praise,  and  honour,  and 
glory. 

Trust;  that  is  the  condition.  The  salvation  rises 
from  the  heart  of  God.  You  cannot  touch  the  stream 
at  its  source,  but  you  can  tap  it  away  down  in  its  flow. 
What  do  you  want  machinery  and  pumps  for?  Put  a 
yard  of  wooden  pipe  into  the  river,  and  your  house  will 
have  all  the  water  it  needs. 

So,  dear  brethren,  here  is  the  condition — it  is  a  con- 
dition only,  for  there  is  no  virtue  in  the  act  of  trust, 
but  only  in  that  with  which  we  are  brought  into  living 
union  when  we  do  trust.  When  salvation  comes  into 
my  heart  by  faith  it  is  not  my  faith  but  God's  grace 
that  puts  salvation  there. 

Faith  is  only  the  condition,  ay !  but  it  is  the  indis- 
pensable condition.  How  many  ways  are  there  of 
getting  possession  of  a  gift  ?  One  only,  I  should  sup- 
pose, and  that  is,  to  put  out  a  hand  and  take  it.  If 
salvation  is  by  grace  it  must  be  '  through  faith.'  If  you 
will  not  accept  you  cannot  have.  That  is  the  plain 
meaning  of  what  theologians  call  justification  by 
faith;  that  pardon  is  given  on  condition  of  taking 
it.  If  you  do  not  take  it  you  cannot  have  it.  And 
so  this  is  the  upshot  of  the  whole — trust,  and  you 
have. 

Oh,  dear  friends  !  open  your  eyes  to  see  your  dangers. 
Let  your  conscience  tell  you  of  your  sickness.  Do  not 
try  to  deliver,  or  to  heal  yourselves.  Self-reliance  and 
self-help  are  very  good  things,  but  they  leave  their 
limitations,  and  they  have  no  place  here.  '  Every  man 
his  own  Redeemer'  will  not  work.  You  can  no  more 
extricate  yourself  from  the  toils  of  sin  than  a  man  can 
release  himself  from  the  folds  of  a  python.  You  can 
no  more  climb  to  heaven  by  your  own  effort  than  you 


108     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

can  build  a  railway  to  the  moon.  You  must  sue  in 
forma  pauperis,  and  be  content  to  accept  as  a  boon  an 
unmerited  place  in  your  Father's  heart,  an  undeserved 
seat  at  His  bountiful  table,  an  unearned  share  in  His 
wealth,  from  the  hands  of  your  Elder  Brother,  in  whom 
is  all  His  grace,  and  who  gives  salvation  to  every  sinner 
if  he  will  trust  Him.  'By  grace  have  ye  been  saved 
through  faith.' 


GOD'S  WORKMANSHIP  AND  OUR  WORKS 

'  We  are  His  workmanship,  created  in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works,  which  God 
hath  before  ordained  that  we  should  walk  in  them.'— Eph.  ii,  10. 

The  metal  is  molten  as  it  runs  out  of  the  blast  furnace, 
but  it  soon  cools  and  hardens.  Paul's  teaching  about 
salvation  by  grace  and  by  faith  came  in  a  hot  stream 
from  his  heart,  but  to  this  generation  his  words  are 
apt  to  sound  coldly,  and  hardly  theological.  But  they 
only  need  to  be  reflected  upon  in  connection  with  our 
own  experience,  to  become  vivid  and  vital  again.  The 
belief  that  a  man  may  work  towards  salvation  is  a 
universal  heresy.  And  the  Apostle,  in  the  context, 
summons  all  his  force  to  destroy  that  error,  and  to 
substitute  the  great  truth  that  we  have  to  begin  with 
an  act  of  God's,  and  only  after  that  can  think  about 
our  acts.  To  work  up  towards  salvation  is,  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  words,  preposterous ;  it  is  inverting 
the  order  of  things.  It  is  beginning  at  the  wrong 
end.  It  is  saying  X  Y  Z  before  you  have  learnt  to  say 
ABC.  We  are  to  work  downwards  from  salvation 
because  we  have  it,  not  that  we  may  get  it.  And 
whatever  '  good  works '  may  mean,  they  are  the  con- 


V.  10]  GOD'S  WORKMANSHIP  109 

sequences,  not  the  causes,  of  '  salvation,'  Ts^hatever  that 
may  mean.  But  they  are  consequences,  and  they  are 
the  very  purpose  of  it.  So  says  Paul  in  the  archaic 
language  of  my  text — which  only  wants  a  little  stead- 
fast looking  at  to  be  turned  into  up-to-date  gospel — 
'We  are  His  workmanship,  created  unto  good  works'; 
and  the  fact  that  we  are  is  one  great  reason  for  the 
assertion  which  he  brings  it  in  to  buttress,  that  we 
are  saved  by  grace,  not  by  works.  Now,  I  wish,  in  the 
simplest  possible  way,  to  deal  with  these  great  words, 
and  take  them  as  they  lie  before  us. 

I.  We  have,  first,  then,  this  as  the  root  of  everything, 
the  divine  creation. 

Now,  you  will  find  that  in  this  profound  letter  of 
the  Apostle  there  are  two  ideas  cropping  up  over  and 
over  again,  both  of  them  representing  the  facts  of  the 
Christian  life  and  of  the  transition  from  the  un- 
christian to  the  Christian  ;  and  the  one  is  Resurrection 
and  the  other  is  Creation.  They  have  this  in  common, 
that  they  suggest  the  idea  that  the  great  gift  which 
Christianity  brings  to  men — no,  do  not  let  me  use  the 
abstract  word  'Christianity'  —  the  great  gift  which 
Christ  brings  to  men — is  a  new  life.  The  low  popular 
notion  that  salvation  means  mainly  and  primarily  im- 
munity from  the  ultimate,  most  lasting  future  con- 
sequences of  transgression,  a  change  of  place  or  of 
condition,  infects  us  all,  and  is  far  too  dominant  in  our 
popular  notions  of  Christianity  and  of  salvation.  And 
it  is  because  people  have  such  an  unworthy,  narrow, 
selfish  idea  of  what  'salvation'  is  that  they  fall  into 
the  bog  of  misconception  as  to  how  it  is  to  be  attained. 
The  ordinary  man's  way  of  looking  at  the  whole 
matter  is  summed  up  in  a  sentence  which  I  heard  not 
long  since  about  a  recently  deceased  friend  of   the 


110    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  n. 

speaker's,  and  the  like  of  which  you  have  no  doubt 
often  heard  and  perhaps  said,  '  He  is  sure  to  be  saved 
because  he  has  lived  so  straight.'  And  at  the  founda- 
tion of  that  conjBdent  epitaph  lay  a  tragical,  profound 
misapprehension  of  what  salvation  was. 

For  it  is  something  done  in  you ;  it  is  not  something 
that  you  get,  but  it  is  something  that  you  become. 
The  teaching  of  this  letter,  and  of  the  whole  New 
Testament,  is  that  the  profoundest  and  most  precious 
of  all  the  gifts  which  come  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
which  in  their  totality  are  summed  up  in  the  one 
word  that  has  so  little  power  over  us,  because  we 
understand  it  so  little,  and  know  it  so  well — 'salvation' 
— is  a  change  in  a  man's  nature  so  deep,  radical,  vital, 
as  that  it  may  fairly  be  paralleled  with  a  resurrection 
from  the  dead. 

Now,  I  venture  to  believe  that  it  is  something  more 
than  a  strong  rhetorical  figure  when  that  change  is 
described  as  being  the  creation  of  a  new  man  within 
us.  The  resurrection  symbol  for  the  same  fact  may 
be  treated  as  but  a  symbol.  You  cannot  treat  the 
teaching  of  a  new  life  in  Christ  as  being  a  mere  figure. 
It  is  something  a  great  deal  more  than  that,  and 
when  once  a  man's  eye  is  opened  to  look  for  it  in 
the  New  Testament  it  is  wonderful  how  it  flashes  out 
from  every  page  and  underlies  the  whole  teaching. 
The  Gospel  of  John,  for  example,  is  but  one  long 
symphony  which  has  for  its  dominant  theme  *I  am 
come  that  they  might  have  life.'  And  that  great 
teaching  —  which  has  been  so  vulgarised,  narrowed, 
and  mishandled  by  sacerdotal  pretensions  and  sacra- 
mentarian  superstitions — that  great  teaching  of  Re- 
generation, or  the  new  birth,  rests  upon  this  as  its 
very  basis,  that  what  takes  place  when  a  man  turna 


V.  10]  GOD'S  WORKMANSHIP  111 

to  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  saved  by  Him,  is  that  there  is 
communicated  to  him  not  in  symbol  but  in  spiritiial 
fact  (and  spiritual  facts  are  far  more  true  than  ex- 
ternal ones  which  are  called  real)  a  spark  of  Christ's 
own  life,  something  of  'that  spirit  of  life  which  ^^as 
in  Christ  Jesus,'  and  by  which,  and  by  which  alone, 
being  transfused  into  us,  we  become  'free  from  the 
law  of  sin  and  death.'  I  beseech  you,  brethren,  see 
that,  in  your  perspective  of  Christian  truth,  the  thought 
of  a  new  life  imparted  to  us  has  as  prominent  and  as 
dominant  a  place  as  it  obviously  has  in  the  teaching 
of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  not  so  dominant  in  the 
current  notions  of  Christianity  that  prevail  amongst 
average  people,  but  it  is  so  in  all  men  who  let  them- 
selves be  guided  by  the  plain  teaching  of  Christ  Him- 
self and  of  all  His  servants.  Salvation?  Yes!  And 
the  very  essence  of  the  salvation  is  the  breathing  into 
me  of  a  divine  life,  so  that  I  become  partaker  of  '  the 
divine  nature.' 

Now,  there  is  another  step  to  be  taken,  and  that  is 
that  this  new  life  is  realised  in  Christ  Jesus.  Now, 
this  letter  of  the  Apostle  is  distinguished  even  amongst 
his  letters  by  the  extraordinary  frequency  and  emphasis 
with  which  he  uses  that  expression  '  in  Christ  Jesus.' 
If  you  will  take  up  the  epistle,  and  run  your  eye  over 
it  at  your  leisure,  I  think  you  will  be  surprised  to  find 
how,  in  all  connections,  and  linked  with  every  sort  of 
blessing  and  good  as  its  condition,  there  recurs  that 
phrase.  It  is  'in  Christ'  that  we  obtain  the  inherit- 
ance; it  is  'in  Christ'  that  we  receive  'redemption, 
even  the  forgiveness  of  sins';  it  is  in  Him  that  we  are 
•builded  together  for  a  habitation  of  God';  it  is  in 
Him  that  all  fulness  of  divine  gifts,  and  all  blessedness 
of  spiritual   capacities,  is  commuuicated  to   us;   and 


112    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ii. 

unless,  in  our  perspective  of  the  Christian  life,  that 
expression  has  the  same  prominence  as  it  has  in  this 
letter,  we  have  yet  to  learn  the  sweetest  sweetness, 
and  have  yet  to  receive  the  most  mighty  power,  of  the 
Gospel  that  we  profess.  'In  Christ' — a  union  which 
leaves  the  individuality  of  the  Saviour  and  of  the  saint 
unimpaired,  because  without  such  individuality  sweet 
love  were  slain,  and  there  were  no  communion  possible, 
but  which  is  so  close,  so  real,  so  vital,  as  that  only  the 
separating  wall  of  personality  and  individual  con- 
sciousness comes  in  between — that  is  the  New  Testa- 
ment teaching  of  the  relation  of  the  Christian  to 
Christ.  Is  it  your  experience,  dear  brother  ?  Do  not 
be  frightened  by  talking  about  mysticism.  If  a  Christi- 
anity has  no  mysticism  it  has  no  life.  There  is  a 
wholesome  mysticism  and  there  is  a  morbid  one,  and 
the  wholesome  one  is  the  very  nerve  of  the  Gospel  as 
it  is  presented  by  Jesus  Himself :  '  I  am  the  Vine,  ye 
are  the  branches.  Abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you.'  If  our 
nineteenth  century  busy  Christianity  could  only  get 
hold  of  that  truth  as  firmly  as  it  grasps  the  re- 
presentative and  sacrificial  character  of  Christ's  work, 
I  believe  it  would  come  like  a  breath  of  spring  over 
'the  winter  of  our  discontent,'  and  would  change  pro- 
foundly and  blessedly  the  whole  contexture  of  modern 
Christianity. 

And  now  there  is  another  step  to  take,  and  that  is 
that  this  union  with  Christ,  which  results  in  the  com- 
munication of  a  new  life,  or,  as  my  text  puts  it,  a  new 
creation,  depends  upon  our  faith.  We  are  not  passive 
in  the  matter.  There  is  the  condition  on  which  the 
entrance  of  the  life  into  our  spirits  is  made  possible. 
Tou  must  open  the  door,  you  must  fling  wide  the 
casement,  and  the  blessed  warm  morning  air  of  the 


V.  10]  GOD'S  WORKMANSHIP  113 

sun  of  righteousness,  with  healing  in  its  beams,  will 
rush  in,  scatter  the  darkness  and  raise  the  tem- 
perature. *  Faith,'  by  which  we  simply  mean  the  act 
of  the  mind  in  accepting  and  of  the  will  and  heart 
in  casting  one's  self  upon  Christ  as  the  Saviour— 
that  act  is  the  condition  of  this  new  life.  And  so 
each  Christian  is  'God's  workmanship,  created  in 
Christ  Jesus.' 

And  now,  says  Paul— and  here  some  of  us  will  hesi 
tate  to  follow  him— that  new  creation  has  to  go  before 
what  you  call  '  good  works.'  Now,  do  not  let  us  exag- 
gerate. There  has  seldom  been  a  more  disastrous 
and  untrue  thing  said  than  what  one  of  the  Fathers 
dared  to  say,  that  the  virtues  of  godless  men  were 
'splendid  vices.'  That  is  not  so,  and  that  is  not  the 
New  Testament  teaching.  Good  is  good,  whoever  does 
it.  But,  then,  no  man  will  say  that  actions,  however 
they  may  meet  the  human  conception  of  excellence, 
however  bright,  pure,  lofty  in  motive  and  in  aim  they 
may  be,  reach  their  highest  possible  radiance  and  are 
as  good  as  they  ought  to  be,  if  they  are  done  without 
any  reference  to  God  and  His  love.  Dear  brethren, 
we  surely  do  not  need  to  have  the  alphabet  of  morality 
repeated  to  us,  that  the  worth  of  an  action  depends 
upon  its  motive,  that  no  motive  is  correspondent  to 
our  capacities  and  our  relation  to  God  and  our  conse- 
quent responsibilities,  except  the  motive  of  loving 
obedience  to  Him.  Unless  that  be  present,  the  brightest 
of  human  acts  must  be  convicted  of  having  dark 
shadows  in  it,  and  all  the  darker  because  of  the  bright- 
ness that  may  stream  from  it.  And  so  I  venture  to 
assert  that  since  the  noblest  systems  of  morality,  apart 
from  religion,  will  all  coincide  in  saying  that  to  be  is 
more  than   to  do,  and  that  the  worth  of  an  action 

II 


114     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

depends  upon  its  motive,  we  are  brought  straight  up 
to  the  'narrow,  bigoted'  teaching  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, that  unless  a  man  is  swayed  by  the  love  of  God 
in  what  he  does,  you  cannot,  in  the  most  searching 
analysis,  say  that  his  deed  is  as  good  as  it  ought  to  be, 
and  as  it  might  be.  To  be  good  is  the  first  thing,  to 
do  good  is  the  second.  Make  the  tree  good  and  its 
fruit  good.  And  since,  as  we  have  made  ourselves  we 
are  evil,  there  must  come  a  re-creation  before  we  can 
do  the  good  deeds  which  our  relation  to  God  requires 
at  our  hands. 

II.  I  ask  you  to  look  at  the  purpose  of  this  new 
creation  brought  out  in  our  text. 

'  Created  in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works.'  That 
is  what  life  is  given  to  you  for.  That  is  why  you  are 
saved,  says  Paul.  Instead  of  working  upwards  from 
works  to  salvation,  take  your  stand  at  the  received 
salvation,  and  understand  what  it  is  for,  and  work 
downwards  from  it. 

Now,  do  not  let  us  take  that  phrase,  'good  works, 
which  I  have  already  said  came  hot  from  the  Apostle's 
heart,  and  is  now  cold  as  a  bar  of  iron,  in  the  limited 
sense  which  it  has  come  to  bear  in  modern  religious 
phraseology.  It  means  something  a  great  deal  more 
than  that.  It  covers  the  whole  ground  of  what  the 
Apostle,  in  another  of  his  letters,  speaks  of  when  he 
says,  'Whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good 
report,  if  there  be  any  virtue' — to  use  for  a  moment 
the  world's  word,  which  has  such  power  to  conjure 
in  Greek  ethics — '  or  if  there  be  any  praise  ' — to  use  for 
a  moment  the  world's  low  motive,  which  has  such 
power  to  sway  men  —  'think  of  these  things,'  and 
these  things  do.  That  is  the  width  of  the  conception 
of  'good  works';  everything  that  is   'lovely  and  of 


V.  10]  GOD'S  WORKMANSHIP  115 

good  report.'  That  is  what  you  receive  the  new 
life  for. 

Contrast  that  with  other  notions  of  the  purpose 
of  revelation  and  redemption.  Contrast  it  with  what 
I  have  already  referred  to,  and  so  need  not  enlarge 
upon  now,  the  miserably  inadequate  and  low  notions 
of  the  essentials  of  salvation  which  one  hears  per- 
petually, and  which  many  of  us  cherish.  It  is  no  mere 
immunity  from  a  future  hell.  It  is  no  mere  entrance 
into  a  vague  heaven.  It  is  not  escaping  the  penalty 
of  the  inexorable  law,  'Whatsoever  a  man  soweth 
that  shall  he  also  reap,'  that  is  meant  by  'salvation,' 
any  more  than  it  is  putting  aTvay  the  rod,  which 
the  child  would  be  all  the  better  for  having  adminis- 
tered to  him,  that  is  meant  by  '  forgiveness.'  But 
just  as  forgiveness,  in  its  essence,  means  not  suspension 
nor  abolition  of  penalty,  but  the  uninterrupted  flow 
of  the  Father's  love,  so  salvation  in  its  essence  means, 
not  the  deliverance  from  any  external  evil  or  the 
alteration  of  anything  in  the  external  position,  but 
the  revolution  and  the  re  -  creation  of  the  man's 
nature.  And  the  purpose  of  it  is  that  the  saved 
man  may  live  in  conformity  with  the  will  of  God, 
and  that  on  his  character  there  may  be  embroidered 
all  the  fair  things  which  God  desires  to  see  on  His 
child's  vesture. 

Contrast  it  with  the  notion  that  an  orthodox  belief 
is  the  purpose  of  revelation.  I  remember  hearing 
once  of  a  man  that  'he  was  a  very  shady  character, 
but  sound  on  the  Atonement.'  What  is  the  use  of 
being  'sound  on  the  Atonement'  if  the  Atonement 
does  not  make  you  live  the  Christ  life  ?  And  what  is 
the  good  of  all  your  orthodoxy  unless  the  orthodoxy 
of  creed  issues  in  orthopraxy  of  conduct?    There  are 


116    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

far  too  many  of  us  who  half-consciously  do  still  hold 
by  the  notion  that  if  a  man  believes  rightly  then 
that  makes  him  a  Christian.  My  text  shatters  to 
pieces  any  such  conception.  You  are  saved  that 
you  may  be  good,  and  do  good  continually;  and  un- 
less you  are  so  doing  you  may  be  steeped  to  the  eye- 
brows in  the  correctest  of  creeds,  and  it  will  only  drown 
you. 

Contrast  this  conception  of  the  purpose  of  Christi- 
anity with  the  far  too  common  notion  that  we  are 
saved,  mainly  in  order  that  we  may  indulge  in  devout 
emotions,  and  in  the  outgoing  of  affection  and  confi- 
dence to  Jesus  Christ.  Emotional  Christianity  is  neces- 
sary, but  Christianity,  which  is  mainly  or  exclusively 
emotional,  lives  next  door  to  hypocrisy,  and  there  is 
a  door  of  communication  between  them.  For  there  is 
nothing  more  certain  and  more  often  illustrated  in 
experience  than  that  there  is  a  strange  underground 
connection  between  a  Christianity  which  is  mainly 
fervid  and  a  very  shady  life.  One  sees  it  over  and 
over  again.  And  the  cure  of  that  is  to  apprehend 
the  great  truth  of  my  text,  that  we  are  saved,  not  in 
order  that  we  may  know  aright,  nor  in  order  that  we 
may  feel  aright,  but  in  order  that  we  may  be  good 
and  do  'good  works.'  In  the  order  of  things,  right 
thought  touches  the  springs  of  right  feeling,  and  right 
feeling  sets  going  the  wheels  of  right  action.  Do  not 
let  the  steam  all  go  roaring  out  of  the  waste-pipe 
in  however  sacred  and  blessed  emotions.  See  that  it 
is  guided  so  as  to  drive  the  spindles  and  the  shuttles 
and  make  the  web. 

III.  And  now,  lastly,  and  only  a  word — here  we 
have  the  field  provided  for  the  exercise  of  the  'good 
works.' 


v.io]  GOD'S  WORKMANSHIP  117 

•Created  unto  good  works  which  God  has  before 
prepared'  —  before  the  re-creation — 'that  we  should 
walk  in  them.'  That  is  to  say,  the  true  way  to  look  at 
the  life  is  to  regard  it  as  the  exercising-ground  which 
God  has  prepared  for  the  development  of  the  life  that, 
through  Christ,  is  implanted  in  us.  He  cuts  the 
channels  that  the  stream  may  flow.  That  is  the  way 
to  look  at  tasks,  at  difficulties.  Difficulty  is  the  parent 
of  power,  and  God  arranges  our  circumstances  in  order 
that,  by  wrestling  with  obstacles,  we  may  gain  the 
'thews  that  throw  the  world,'  and  in  order  that  in 
sorrows  and  in  joys,  in  the  rough  places  and  the 
smooth,  we  may  find  occasions  for  the  exercise  of  the 
goodness  which  is  lodged  potentially  in  us,  when  He 
creates  us  in  Christ  Jesus.  So  be  sure  that  the  path 
and  the  power  will  always  correspond.  God  does  not 
lead  us  on  roads  that  are  too  steep  for  our  weak- 
ness, and  too  long  for  our  strength.  What  He  bids 
us  do  He  fits  us  for ;  what  He  fits  us  for  He  thereby 
bids  us  do. 

And  so,  dear  brother,  take  heed  that  you  are  ful- 
filling the  purpose  for  which  you  receive  this  new 
life.  And  let  us  all  remember  the  order  in  which 
being  and  doing  come.  We  must  be  good  first,  and 
then,  and  only  then,  shall  we  do  good.  We  must  have 
Christ  for  us  first,  our  sacrifice  and  our  means  of 
receiving  that  new  life,  and  then,  Christ  in  us,  the 
soul  of  our  souls,  the  Life  of  our  lives,  the  source  of 
all  our  goodness. 

•  If  any  power  we  have,  it  is  to  ill, 
And  all  the  power  is  Thine  to  do  and  eke  to  will.' 


•THE   CHIEF  CORNER-STONE* 

'  Built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Christ  Jesus  Himself 
being  the  chief  corner-stone.'— Eph.  ii.  20  (R.V.). 

The  Roman  Empire  had  in  Paul's  time  gathered  into  a 
great  unity  the  Asiatics  of  Ephesus,  the  Greeks  of 
Corinth,  the  Jews  of  Palestine,  and  men  of  many 
another  race,  but  grand  and  imposing  as  that  great 
unity  was,  it  was  to  Paul  a  poor  thing  compared  with 
the  oneness  of  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ.  Asiatics 
of  Ephesus,  Greeks  of  Corinth,  Jews  of  Palestine  and 
members  of  many  another  race  could  say, '  Our  citizen- 
ship is  in  heaven.'  The  Roman  Eagle  swept  over  wide 
regions  in  her  flight,  but  the  Dove  of  Peace,  sent  forth 
from  Christ's  hand,  travelled  further  than  she.  As 
Paul  says  in  the  context,  the  Ephesians  had  been 
strangers,  'aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,' 
wandering  like  the  remnants  of  some  'broken  clans,' 
but  now  they  are  gathered  in.  That  narrow  com- 
munity of  the  Jewish  nation  has  expanded  its  bounds 
and  become  the  mother-country  of  believing  souls,  the 
true  '  island  of  saints.'  It  was  not  Rome  which  really 
made  all  peoples  one,  but  it  was  the  weakest  and  most 
despised  of  her  subject  races.  '  Of  Zion  it  shall  be  said,' 
'  Lo !  this  and  that  man  was  born  in  her.' 

To  emphasise  the  thought  of  the  great  unity  of 
the  Church,  the  Apostle  uses  here  his  often-repeated 
metaphor  of  a  temple,  of  which  the  Ephesian  Chris- 
tiajis  are  the  stones,  apostles  and  prophets  the  builders, 
and  Christ  Himself  the  chief  corner-stone.  Of  course 
the  representation  of  the  foundation,  as  being  laid  by 
apostles  and  prophets,  refers  to  them  as  proclaiming 
the  Gospel.    The  real  laying  of  the  fdundation  is  the 

IIM 


V.20]    *THE  CHIEF  CORNER-STONE'      119 

work  of  the  divine  power  and  love  which  gave  us 
Christ,  and  it  is  the  Divine  Yoice  which  proclaims, 
•Behold  /lay  in  Zion  a  foundation!'  But  that  divine 
work  has  to  be  made  known  among  men,  and  it  is  by 
the  making  of  it  known  that  the  building  rises  course 
by  course.  There  is  no  contradiction  between  the  two 
statements,  '  I  have  laid  the  foundation '  and  Paul's  '  As 
a  wise  master-builder  I  have  laid  the  foundation.' 

A  question  may  here  rise  as  to  the  meaning  of 
•prophets.'  Unquestionably  the  expression  in  other 
places  of  the  Epistle  does  mean  New  Testament 
prophets,  but  seeing  that  here  Jesus  is  designated  as 
the  foundation  stone  which,  standing  beneath  two 
walls,  has  a  face  into  each,  and  binds  them  strongly 
together,  it  is  more  natural  to  see  in  the  prophets 
the  representatives  of  the  great  teachers  of  the  old 
dispensation  as  the  apostles  were  of  the  new.  The 
remarkable  order  in  which  these  two  classes  are  named, 
the  apostles  being  first,  and  the  prophets  who  were 
first  in  time  being  last  in  order  of  mention,  confirms 
this  explanation,  for  the  two  co-operating  classes  are 
named  in  the  order  in  which  they  lie  in  the  foundation. 
Digging  down  you  come  to  the  more  recent  first,  to 
the  earlier  second,  and  deep  and  massive,  beneath 
all,  to  the  corner-stone  on  whom  all  rests,  in  whom  all 
are  united  together.  Following  the  Apostle's  order  we 
may  note  the  process  of  building;  beneath  that,  the 
foundation  on  which  the  building  rests ;  and  beneath 
it,  the  corner-stone  which  underlies  and  unites  the 
whole. 

I.  The  process  of  building. 

In  the  previous  clauses  the  Apostle  has  represented 
the  condition  of  the  Ephesian  Christians  before  their 
Christianity  as  being  that  of  strangers  and  foreigners, 


120    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS   [ch.ii. 

lacking  the  rights  of  citizenship  anywhere,  a  mob 
rather  than  in  any  sense  a  society.  They  had  been  like 
a  confused  heap  of  stones  flung  fortuitously  together ; 
they  had  become  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints.  The 
stones  had  been  piled  up  into  an  orderly  building.  He 
is  not  ignoring  the  facts  of  national,  political,  or  civic 
relationships  which  existed  independent  of  the  new 
unity  realised  in  a  common  faith.  These  relationships 
could  not  be  ignored  by  one  who  had  had  Paul's  ex- 
perience of  their  formidable  character  as  antagonists 
of  him  and  of  his  message,  but  they  seemed  to  him,  in 
contrast  with  the  still  deeper  and  far  more  perfect 
union,  which  was  being  brought  about  in  Christ,  of 
men  of  all  nationalities  and  belonging  to  mutually 
hostile  races,  to  be  little  better  than  the  fortuitous 
union  of  a  pile  of  stones  huddled  together  on  the  road- 
side. Measured  against  the  architecture  of  the  Church, 
as  Paul  saw  it  in  his  lofty  idealism,  the  aggregations 
of  men  in  the  world  do  not  deserve  the  name  of 
buildings.  His  point  of  view  is  the  exact  opposite  of 
that  which  is  common  around  us,  and  which,  alas! 
finds  but  too  much  support  in  the  present  aspects  of 
the  so-called  churches  of  this  day. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  in  our  text  these  stones  are, 
in  accordance  with  the  propriety  of  the  metaphor,  re- 
garded as  being  built,  that  is,  as  in  some  sense  the 
subjects  of  a  force  brought  to  bear  upon  them,  which 
results  in  their  being  laid  together  in  orderly  fashion 
and  according  to  a  plan,  but  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten 
that,  according  to  the  teaching,  not  of  this  epistle 
alone,  but  of  all  Paul's  letters,  the  living  stones  are 
active  in  the  work  of  building,  as  well  as  beings 
subject  to  an  influence.  In  another  place  of  the 
New  Testament  we  read  the  exhortation  to  '  build  up 


V.20]    *THE  CHIEF  CORNER-STONE'      121 

yourselves  on  your  most  holy  faith,'  and  the  means 
of  discharging  that  duty  are  set  forth  in  the  words 
which  follow  it ;  as  being  '  Praying  in  the  Holy  Spirit, 
keeping  yourselves  in  the  love  of  God,  and  looking 
for  the  mercy  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.' 

Throughout  the  Pauline  letters  we  have  frequent 
references  to  edifying,  a  phrase  which  has  been  so 
vulgarised  by  much  handling  that  its  great  meaning 
has  been  all  but  lost,  but  which  still,  rightly  under- 
stood, presents  the  Christian  life  as  one  continuous 
effort  after  developing  Christian  character.  Taking 
into  view  the  whole  of  the  apostolic  references  to 
this  continuous  process  of  building,  we  cannot  but 
recognise  that  it  all  begins  with  the  act  of  faith  which 
brings  men  into  immediate  contact  and  vital  union 
with  Jesus  Christ,  and  which  is,  if  anything  that  a 
man  does  is,  the  act  of  his  very  inmost  self  passing 
out  of  its  own  isolation  and  resting  itself  on  Jesus. 
It  is  by  the  vital  and  individual  act  of  faith  that 
any  soul  escapes  from  the  dreary  isolation  of  being 
a  stranger  and  a  foreigner,  wandering,  homeless  and 
solitary,  and  finds  through  Jesus  fellowship,  an  elder 
Brother,  a  Father,  and  a  home  populous  with  many 
brethren.  But  whilst  faith  is  the  condition  of  begin- 
ning the  Christian  life,  which  is  the  only  real  life, 
that  life  has  to  be  continued  and  developed  towards 
perfection  by  continuous  effort.  ''Tis  a  life-long  toil 
till  the  lump  be  leavened.' 

One  of  the  passages  already  referred  to  varies  the 
metaphor  of  building,  in  so  far  as  it  seems  to  repre- 
sent 'your'^most  holy  faith'  as  the  foundation,  and  may 
be  an  instance  of  the  doubtful  New  Testament  usage  of 
'faith,'  as  meaning  the  believed  Gospel,  rather  than  the 
personal  act  of  believing.    But  however  that  ipay  be, 


122     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

the  context  of  the  words  clearly  suggests  the  practical 
duties  by  which  the  Christian  life  is  preserved  and 
strengthened.  They  who  build  up  themselves  do  so, 
mainly,  by  keeping  themselves  in  the  love  of  God  with 
watchful  oversight  and  continual  preparedness  for 
struggle  against  all  foes  who  would  drag  them  from 
that  safe  fortress,  and  subsidiarily,  by  like  continuity  in 
prayer,  and  in  fixing  their  meek  hope  on  the  mercy  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  unto  eternal  life.  If  Christian 
character  is  ever  to  be  made  more  Christian,  it  must 
be  by  a  firmer  grasp  and  a  more  vivid  realisation  of 
Christ  and  His  truth.  The  more  we  feel  ourselves  to 
be  lapped  in  the  love  of  God,  the  more  shall  we  be 
builded  up  on  our  most  holy  faith.  There  is  no  mystery 
about  the  means  of  Christian  progress.  That  which, 
at  the  beginning,  made  a  man  a  Christian  shapes  his 
whole  future  course ;  the  measuj  e  of  our  faith  is  the 
measure  of  our  advance. 

But  the  Apostle,  in  the  immediately  following  words, 
goes  on  to  pass  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  metaphor, 
and  with  complete  indifference  to  the  charge  of  mixing 
figures,  speaks  of  the  building  as  growing.  That  thought 
leads  us  into  a  higher  region  than  that  of  effort.  The 
process  by  which  a  great  forest  tree  thickens  its  boles, 
expands  the  sweep  of  its  branches  and  lifts  them  nearer 
the  heavens,  is  very  different  from  that  by  which  a 
building  rises  slowly  and  toilsomely  and  with  manifest 
incompleteness  all  the  time,  until  the  flag  flies  on  the 
roof-tree.  And  if  we  had  not  this  nobler  thought  of  a 
possible  advance  by  the  increasing  circulation  within 
us  of  a  mysterious  life,  there  would  be  little  gospel  in 
a  word  which  only  enjoined  effort  as  the  condition  of 
moral  progress,  and  there  would  be  little  to  choose 
between  Paul  and  Plato.     He  goes  on  immediately  to 


V.20]    *  THE  CHIEF  CORNER-STONE  '      123 

bring  out  more  fully  what  he  means  by  the  growth  of 
the  building,  when  he  says  that  if  Christians  are  in 
Christ,  they  are  *  built  up  for  an  habitation  of  God  in 
the  Spirit.'  Union  with  Christ,  and  a  consequent  life 
in  the  Sj)irit,  are  sure  to  result  in  the  growth  of  the 
individual  soul  and  of  the  collective  community.  That 
divine  Spirit  dwells  in  and  works  through  every  be- 
lieving soul,  and  while  it  is  possible  to  grieve  and  to 
quench  It,  to  resist  and  even  to  neutralise  Its  workings, 
these  are  the  true  sources  of  all  our  growth  in  grace 
and  knowledge.  The  process  of  building  may  be  and 
will  be  slow.  Sometimes  lurking  enemies  will  pull 
down  in  a  night  what  we  have  laboured  at  for  many 
days.  Often  our  hands  will  be  slack  and  our  hearts 
will  droop.  We  shall  often  be  tempted  to  think  that 
our  progress  is  so  slow  that  it  is  doubtful  if  we  have 
ever  been  on  the  foundation  at  all  or  have  been 
building  at  all.  But  '  the  Spirit  helpeth  our  infirmities,' 
and  the  task  is  not  ours  alone  but  His  in  us.  We  have 
to  recognise  that  effort  is  inseparable  from  building, 
but  we  have  also  to  remember  that  growth  depends  on 
the  free  circulation  of  life,  and  that  if  we  are,  and 
abide  in,  Jesus,  we  cannot  but  be  built  '  for  an  habita- 
tion of  God  in  the  Spirit.'  We  may  be  sure  that 
whatever  may  be  the  gaps  and  shortcomings  in  the 
structures  that  we  rear  here,  none  will  be  able  to  say 
of  us  at  the  last,  '  This  man  began  to  build  and  was  not 
able  to  finish.' 

II.  The  foundation  on  which  the  building  rests. 

In  the  Greek,  as  in  our  version,  there  is  no  definite 
article  before  '  prophets,'  and  its  absence  indicates  that 
both  sets  of  persons  here  mentioned  come  under  the 
common  vinculum  of  the  one  definite  article  preceding 
the  first  named.    So  that  apostles  and  prophets  belong 


124    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

to  one  class.  It  may  be  a  question  whether  the  founda- 
tion is  theirs  in  the  sense  that  they  constitute  it,  an 
explanation  in  favour  of  which  can  be  quoted  the 
vision  in  the  Apocalypse  of  the  new  Jerusalem,  in  the 
twelve  foundations  of  which  were  written  the  names 
of  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb,  or  whether,  as  is 
more  probable,  the  foundation  is  conceived  of  as  laid 
by  them.  In  like  manner  the  Apostle  speaks  to  the 
Corinthians  of  having  '  as  a  wise  master-builder  laid  the 
foundation,'  and  to  the  Romans  of  making  it  his  aim  to 
preach  especially  where  Christ  was  not  already  named, 
that  he  might  'not  build  upon  another  man's  foun- 
dation.' Following  these  indications,  it  seems  best  to 
understand  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  as  being  the 
laying  of  the  foundation. 

Further,  the  question  may  be  raised  whether  the 
prophets  here  mentioned  belong  to  the  Old  Testament 
or  to  the  New.  The  latter  alternative  has  been  preferred 
on  the  ground  that  the  apostles  are  named  first,  but, 
as  we  have  already  noticed,  the  order  here  begins  at 
the  top  and  goes  downwards,  what  was  last  in  order 
of  time  being  first  in  order  of  mention.  We  need  only 
recall  Peter's  bold  words  that  'all  the  prophets,  as 
many  as  have  spoken,  have  told  of  the  days '  of  Christ, 
or  Paul's  sermon  in  the  synagogue  of  Antioch  in  which 
he  passionately  insisted  on  the  Jewish  crime  of  con- 
demning Christ  as  being  the  fulfilment  of  the  voices  of 
the  prophets,  and  of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  as  being 
God's  fulfilment  of  the  promise  made  unto  the  fathers 
to  understand  how  here,  as  it  were,  beneath  the  foun- 
dation laid  by  the  present  preaching  of  the  apostles, 
Paul  rejoices  to  discern  the  ancient  stones  firmly  laid 
by  long  dead  hands. 

The  Apostle's  strongest  conviction  was  that  he  him- 


V.20]    'THE  CHIEF  CORNER-STONE'      125 

self  had  become  more  and  not  less  of  a  Jew  by  becoming 
a  Christian,  and  that  the  Gospel  which  he  preached  was 
nothing  more  than  the  perfecting  of  that  Gospel  be- 
fore the  Gospel,  which  had  come  from  the  lips  of  the 
prophets.  We  know  a  great  deal  more  than  he  did 
as  to  the  ways  in  which  the  progressive  divine  revela- 
tion was  presented  to  Israel  through  the  ages,  and 
some  of  us  are  tempted  to  think  that  we  know  more 
than  we  do,  but  the  true  bearing  of  modern  criticism, 
as  applied  to  the  Old  Testament,  is  to  confirm,  even 
whilst  it  may  to  some  extent  modify,  the  conviction 
common  to  all  the  New  Testament  writers,  and  formu- 
lated by  the  last  of  the  New  Testament  prophets,  that 
'the  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy.' 
Whatever  new  light  may  shine  on  the  questions  of  the 
origin  and  composition  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, it  will  never  obscure  the  radiance  of  the  majestic 
figure  of  the  Messiah  which  shines  from  the  prophetic 
page.  The  inner  relation  between  the  foundation  of 
the  apostles  and  that  of  the  prophets  is  best  set  forth 
in  the  solemn  colloquy  on  the  Mount  of  Transfigura- 
tion between  Moses  and  Elias  and  Jesus.  They  '  were 
with  Him '  as  witnessing  to  Him  to  whom  law  and  ritual 
and  prophecy  had  pointed,  and  they  '  spake  of  His 
decease  which  He  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem'  as 
being  the  vital  centre  of  all  His  work  which  the  lambs 
slain  according  to  ritual  had  foreshadowed,  and  the 
prophetic  figure  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  'wounded 
for  our  transgressions  and  bruised  for  our  iniquities ' 
had  more  distinctly  foretold. 

III.  The  corner-stone  which  underlies  and  unites  the 
whole. 

Of  course  the  corner-stone  here  is  the  foundation- 
stone  and  not  'the  head-stone  of  the  corner.'     Jesus 


126    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.ii. 

Christ  is  both.  Ha  is  the  first  and  the  last;  the  Alpha 
and  Omega.  In  accordance  with  the  whole  context,  in 
which  the  prevailing  idea  is  that  which  always  fired 
Paul's  imagination,  viz.  that  of  reconciling  Jew  and 
Gentile  in  one  new  man,  it  is  best  to  suppose  a  reference 
here  to  the  union  of  Jew  and  Gentile.  The  stone  laid 
beneath  the  two  walls  which  diverge  at  right  angles 
from  each  other  binds  both  together  and  gives  strength 
and  cohesion  to  the  whole.  In  the  previous  context 
the  same  idea  is  set  forth  that  Christ  'preached  peace 
to  them  that  were  afar  off  (Gentiles)  and  to  them  that 
were  nigh  (Jews).'  By  His  death  He  broke  down 
another  wall,  the  middle  wall  of  partition  between 
them,  and  did  so  by  abolishing  '  the  law  of  command- 
ments contained  in  ordinances.'  The  old  distinction 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  which  was  accentuated  by 
the  Jew's  rigid  observance  of  ordinances  and  which 
often  led  to  bitter  hatred  on  both  sides,  was  swept 
away  in  that  strange  new  thing,  a  community  of 
believers  drawn  together  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  former 
antagonistic  'twain'  had  become  one  in  a  third  order 
of  man,  the  Christian  man.  The  Jew  Christian  and 
the  Gentile  Christian  became  brethren  because  they 
had  received  one  new  life,  and  they  who  had  common 
feelings  of  faith  and  love  to  the  same  Saviour,  a 
common  character  drawn  from  Him,  and  a  common 
destiny  open  to  them  by  their  common  relation  to 
Jesus,  could  never  cherish  the  old  emotions  of  racial 
hate. 

When  we,  in  this  day,  try  to  picture  to  ourselves 
that  strange  new  thing,  the  love  which  bound  the 
early  Christians  together  and  buried  as  beneath  a 
rushing  flood  the  formidable  walls  of  separation  be- 
tween them,  we  may  well  penitently  ask  ourselves  how 


V.20]    *THE  CHIEF  CORNER-STONE'      127 

it  comes  that  Jesus  seems  to  have  so  miuch  less  power 
to  triumph  over  the  divisive  forces  that  part  us  from 
those  who  should  he  our  hearts'  brothers.  In  our 
modern  life  there  are  no  such  gulfs  of  separation  from 
one  another  as  were  filled  up  unconsciously  in  the  ex- 
perience of  the  first  believers,  but  the  narrower  chinks 
seem  to  remain  in  their  ugliness  between  those  who 
profess  a  common  faith  in  one  Lord,  and  who  are  all 
ready  to  assert  that  they  are  built  on  the  foundation 
of  the  Apostles  and  prophets,  and  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
from  them  the  chief  corner-stone. 

If  in  reality  He  is  so  to  us,  and  He  is  so  if  we  have 
been  builded  upon  Him  through  our  faith,  the  metaphor 
of  corner-stone  and  building  will  fail  to  express  the 
reality  of  our  relation  to  Him,  for  our  corner-stone  has 
in  it  an  infinite  vitality  which  rises  up  through  all  the 
courses  of  the  living  stones,  and  moulds  each  'into  an 
immortal  feature  of  loveliness  and  perfection.'  So  it 
shall  be  for  each  individual,  though  here  the  appro- 
priation of  the  perfect  gift  is  imperfect.  So  it  shall  be 
in  reference  to  the  history  of  the  world.  Christ  is  its 
centre  and  foundation-stone,  and  as  His  coming  makes 
the  date  from  which  the  nations  reckon,  and  all  before 
it  was  in  the  deepest  sense  preparatory  to  His  incar- 
nation, all  which  is  after  it  is  in  the  deepest  sense  the 
appropriating  of  Him  and  the  developing  of  His  work. 
The  multitudes  which  went  before  and  that  followed 
cried,  saying,  '  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord.* 


•THE  Whole  family* 

'The  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth.'— Eph.  ill.  15. 

Grammatically,  we  are  driven  to  recognise  that  the 
Revised  Version  is  more  correct  than  the  Authorised, 
when  it  reads  '  every  family,'  instead  of  '  the  whole 
family.'  There  is  in  the  expression  no  reference  to  the 
thought,  however  true  it  is  in  itself,  that  the  redeemed 
in  heaven  and  the  believers  on  earth  make  up  but  one 
family.  The  thought  rather  is,  that,  as  has  been  said, 
'  the  father  makes  the  family,'  and  if  any  community 
of  intelligent  beings,  human,  or  angelic,  bears  the  great 
name  of  family,  the  great  reason  for  that  lies  '  in  God's 
paternal  relationship.' 

But  my  present  purpose  in  selecting  this  text  is  not 
so  much  to  speak  of  it  as  to  lay  hold  of  the  probably 
incorrect  rendering  in  the  Authorised  Version,  as 
suggesting,  though  here  inaccurately,  the  thought  that 
believers  struggling  here  and  saints  and  angels  glorious 
above  '  but  one  communion  make,'  and  in  the  light  of 
that  thought,  to  consider  the  meaning  of  the  Lord's 
Supper.  I  am,  of  course,  fully  conscious  that  in  thus 
using  the  words,  I  am  diverting  them  from  their  original 
purpose  ;  but  possibly  in  this  case,  open  confession,  iny 
open  confession,  may  merit  your  forgiveness  and  at  all 
events,  it,  in  some  degree,  brings  me  my  own. 

I.  Consider  the  Lord's  Supper  as  a  sign  that  the 
Church  on  earth  is  a  family. 

The  Passover  was  essentially  a  family  feast,  and  the 
Lord's  Supper,  which  was  grafted  on  it,  was  plainly 
meant  to  be  the  same.  The  domestic  character  of  the 
rite  shines  clearly  out  in  the  precious  simplicity  of  the 
arrangements  in  the  upper  room.     When  Christ  and 

118 


V.  15]  *  THE  WHOLE  FAMILY*  129 

the  twelve  sat  down  there,  it  was  a  family  meal  at 
which  they  sat.  He  was  the  head  of  the  household ; 
they  were  members  of  His  family.  The  early  examples 
of  the  rite,  when  the  disciples  *  gathered  together  to 
break  bread,'  obviously  preserved  the  same  familiar 
character,  and  stand  in  extraordinary  contrast  to  the 
splendours  of  high  mass  in  a  Roman  Catholic 
Cathedral.  The  Church,  as  a  whole,  is  a  household, 
and  the  very  form  of  the  rite  proclaims  that  'we,  being 
many,  are  one  bread.'  The  conception  of  a  family 
brings  clearly  into  view  the  deepest  ground  of  Christian 
unity.  It  is  the  possession  of  a  common  life,  just  as 
men  are  born  into  an  earthly  family,  not  of  their  own 
will,  nor  of  their  own  working,  and  come  without  any 
action  of  their  own  into  bonds  of  blood  relationship 
with  brothers  and  sisters.  When  we  become  sons  of 
God  and  are  born  again,  we  become  brethren  of  all  His 
children.  That  which  gives  us  life  in  Him  makes  us 
kindred  with  all  through  whose  veins  flows  that  same 
life.  It  is  the  common  partaking  in  the  one  bread 
which  makes  us  one.  The  same  blood  flows  in  the 
veins  of  all  the  children. 

Hence,  the  only  ground  on  which  the  Church  rests  is 
this  common  possession  of  the  life  of  Christ,  and  that 
ground  makes,  and  ought  to  be  felt  to  make.  Christian 
union  a  far  deeper,  more  blessed,  and  more  imperative 
bond  than  can  be  found  in  any  shallow  similarities  of 
aim — or  identities  of  opinion  or  feeling.  The  deepest 
fact  of  Christian  consciousness  is  the  foundation  fact 
of  Christian  brotherhood ;  each  is  nearer  to  every 
Christian  than  to  any  besides.  A  very  solemn  view  of 
Christian  duty  arises  from  these  thoughts,  familiar  as 

they  are : 

'  No  distance  breaks  the  tie  of  blood, 
Brothers  are  brothers  ever  more,' 
I 


130   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  hi. 

and  every  tongue  is  loud  in  condemnation  of  any  man 
who  is  ashamed  or  afraid  to  recognise  his  brother  and 
stand  by  hira,  whatever  may  be  the  difference  in  their 
worldly  positions.  'Every  one  who  loveth  Him  that 
begat,  loveth  Him  also  that  is  begotten  of  Him.' 

II.  The  Lord's  Supper  as  a  prophecy  of  the  family  at 
home  above. 

The  prophetic  character  was  stamped  on  the  first 
institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper  by  Christ's  own  words 
'until  it  be  fulfilled  in  the  kingdom  of  God,'  and  by  His 
declaration  that  He  appointed  unto  them  a  kingdom, 
that  they  might  eat  and  drink  at  His  table  in  His  king- 
dom. We  may  also  recall  the  mysterious  feast  spread 
on  the  shore  of  the  lake,  where,  with  obvious  allusion 
both  to  his  earlier  miracles  and  to  tLe  sad  hour  in  the 
upper  room,  he  came  '  and  taketh  the  bread  and  gave 
it  to  them.'  Blending  these  two  together  we  get  most 
blessed,  though  dim,  thoughts  of  that  future;  they 
speak  to  us  of  an  eternal  home,  an  eternal  feast,  and 
an  eternal  society.  We  have  to  reverse  not  a  few  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  upper  room  in  order  to  reach 
those  of  the  table  in  the  kingdom.  The  Lord's  Supper 
was  followed  for  Him  by  Gethsemane  and  Calvary,  and 
for  them  by  going  out  to  betray  and  to  deny  and  to 
forsake  Him.  From  that  better  table  1  here  is  no  more 
going  out.  The  servant  comes  in  from  the  field,  spent 
with  toil  and  stained  with  many  a  splash,  but  the 
Master  Himself  comes  forth  and  serves  His  servant. 

In  the  eternal  feast,  which  is  spread  above,  the  bread 
as  well  as  the  wine  is  new,  even  whilst  it  is  old,  for 
there  will  be  disclosed  new  depths  of  blessing  and 
power  in  the  old  Christ,  and  new  draughts  of  joy  and 
strength  in  the  old  wine  which  will  make  the  feastera 
ay,  in  rapture  and  astonishment,  to  the  Master  of  the 


▼.15]  *THE  WHOLE  FAMILY'  131 

feast,  'Thou  hast  kept  the  good  wine  until  now.'  There 
and  then  all  broken  ties  will  be  re-knit,  all  losses  sup- 
plied, and  no  shadow  of  change,  nor  fear  of  exhaustion, 
pass  across  the  calm  hearts. 

III.  The  Lord's  Supper  is  a  token  of  the  present 
union  of  the  two. 

If  it  thus  prophesies  the  perfectness  of  heaven,  it 
also  shows  us  how  the  two  communities  of  earth  and 
heaven  are  united.  They,  as  we,  live  by  derivation  of 
the  one  life ;  they,  as  we,  are  fed  and  blessed  by  the 
one  Lord.  The  occupations  and  thoughts  of  Christian 
lifg  on  earth  and  of  the  perfect  life  of  Saints  above  are 
one.  They  look  to  Christ  as  we  do,  when  we  live  as 
Christians,  though  the  sun  which  is  the  light  of  both 
regions  shows  there  a  broader  disc,  and  pours  forth 
more  fervid  rays,  and  is  never  obscured  by  clouds,  nor 
ever  sets  in  night.  Whether  conscious  of  us  or  not, 
they  are  doing  there,  in  perfect  fashion,  what  we  im- 
perfectly attempt,  and  partially  accomplish. 

*The  Saints  on  earth  and  all  the  Dead 
But  one  communion  make.' 

Heaven  and  earth  are  equally  mansions  in  the  Father's 
house. 

To  the  faith  which  realises  this  great  truth,  death 
dwindles  to  a  small  matter.  The  Lord's  table  has  an 
upper  and  a  lower  level.  Sitting  at  the  lower,  we  may 
feel  that  those  who  have  gone  from  our  sides,  and  have 
left  empty  places  which  never  can  be  filled,  are 
gathered  round  Him  in  the  upper  half,  and  though 
a  screen  hangs  between  the  two,  yet  the  feast  is  one 
and  the  family  is  one.  Singly  our  dear  ones  go,  and 
singly  we  all  shall  go.  The  table  spread  in  the  presence 
of  enemies  will  be  left  vacant  to  its  last  place,  and  the 


132   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  m. 

one  spread  above  will  be  filled  to  its  last  place,  and  so 
shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord,  and  the  unity  which 
was  always  real  be  perfectly  and  permanently  mani- 
fested at  the  last. 


STRENGTHENED  WITH  MIGHT 

'That  He  would  grant  you,  according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  to  be  strength- 
ened with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man.'— Eph.  iii.  16. 

In  no  part  of  Paul's  letters  does  he  rise  to  a  higher 
level  than  in  his  prayers,  and  none  of  his  prayers  are 
fuller  of  fervour  than  this  wonderful  series  of  petitions. 
They  open  out  one  into  the  other  like  some  majestic 
suite  of  apartments  in  a  great  palace-temple,  each 
leading  into  a  loftier  and  more  spacious  hall,  each 
drawing  nearer  the  presence-chamber,  until  at  last  we 
stand  there. 

Roughly  speaking,  the  prayer  is  divided  into  four 
petitions,  of  which  each  is  the  cause  of  the  following 
and  the  result  of  the  preceding — 'That  He  would 
grant  you,  according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  to  be 
strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner 
man' — that  is  the  first.  'In  order  that  Christ  may 
dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith,'  'ye  being  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love ' — such  is  the  second,  the  result  of  the 
first,  and  the  preparation  for  the  third.  '  That  ye  may 
be  able  to  comprehend  with  all  saints  .  .  .  and  to  know 
the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge,'  such  is 
the  third,  and  all  lead  up  at  last  to  that  wonderful 
desire  beyond  which  nothing  is  possible — 'that  ye 
might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.' 

I  venture  to  contemplate  dealing  with  these  four 
petitions  in  successive  sermons,  in  order,  God  helping 


▼.16]   STRENGTHENED  WITH  MIGHT    133 

me,  that  I  may  bring  before  you  a  fairer  vision  of  the 
possibilities  of  your  Christian  life  than  you  ordinarily 
entertain.  For  Paul's  prayer  is  God's  purpose,  and 
what  He  means  with  all  who  profess  His  name  is  that 
these  exuberant  desires  may  be  fulfilled  in  them.  So 
let  us  now  listen  to  that  petition  which  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all,  and  consider  that  great  thought  of  the 
divine  strength-giving  power  which  may  be  bestowed 
upon  every  Christian  soul. 

I.  First,  then,  I  remark  that  God  means,  and  wishes, 
that  all  Christians  should  be  strong  by  the  possession 
of  the  Spirit  of  might. 

It  is  a  miserably  inadequate  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  of  the  gifts  which  it  bestows,  and  the 
blessings  which  it  intends  for  men,  when  it  is  limited, 
as  it  practically  is,  by  a  large  number — I  might  almost 
say  the  majority — of  professing  Christians  to  a  simple 
means  of  altering  their  relation  to  the  past,  and  to  the 
broken  law  of  God  and  of  righteousness.  Thanks  be 
to  His  name !  His  great  gift  to  the  world  begins  in 
each  individual  case  with  the  assurance  that  all  the 
past  is  cancelled.  He  gives  that  blessed  sense  of  for- 
giveness, which  can  never  be  too  highly  estimated 
unless  it  is  forced  out  of  its  true  place  as  the  intro- 
duction, and  made  to  be  the  climax  and  the  end,  of  His 
gifts.  I  do  not  know  what  Christianity  means,  unless 
it  means  that  you  and  I  are  forgiven  for  a  purpose ; 
that  the  purpose,  if  I  may  so  say,  is  something  in 
advance  of  the  means  towards  the  purpose,  the  purpose 
being  that  we  should  be  filled  with  all  the  strength  and 
righteousness  and  supernatural  life  granted  to  us  by 
the  Spirit  of  God. 

It  is  well  that  we  should  enter  into  the  vestibule. 
There  is  no  other  path  to  the  throne  but  through  the 


134   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

vestibule.  But  do  not  let  us  forget  that  the  good  news 
of  forgiveness,  though  we  need  it  day  by  day,  and  need 
it  perpetually  repeated,  is  but  the  introduction  to  and 
porch  of  the  Temple,  and  that  beyond  it  there  towers, 
if  I  cannot  say  a  loftier,  yet  I  may  say  a  further  gift, 
even  the  gift  of  a  divine  life  like  His,  from  whom  it 
comes,  and  of  which  it  is  in  reality  an  effluence  and  a 
spark.  The  true  characteristic  blessing  of  the  Gospel 
is  the  gift  of  a  new  power  to  a  sinful  weak  world ;  a 
power  which  makes  the  feeble  strong,  and  the  strongest 
as  an  angel  of  God. 

Oh,  brethren !  we  who  know  how,  '  if  any  power  we 
have,  it  is  to  ill';  we  who  understand  the  weakness, 
the  unaptness  of  our  spirits  to  any  good,  and  our 
strength  for  every  vagrant  evil  that  comes  upon  them 
to  tempt  them,  should  surely  recognise  as  a  Gospel  in 
very  deed  that  which  proclaims  to  us  that  the  'ever- 
lasting God,  the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the 
earth,'  who  Himself  'faintoth  not,  neither  is  weary,' 
hath  yet  a  loftier  display  of  His  strength-giving  power 
than  that  which  is  visible  in  the  heavens  above,  where, 
'because  He  is  strong  in  might  not  one  faileth.'  That 
heaven,  the  region  of  calm  completeness,  of  law  un- 
broken and  therefore  of  power  undiminished,  affords 
a  lesser  and  dimmer  manifestation  of  His  strength 
than  the  work  that  is  done  in  the  hell  of  a  human 
heart  that  has  wandered  and  is  brought  back,  that  is 
stricken  with  the  weakness  of  the  fever  of  sin,  and  is 
healed  into  the  strength  of  obedience  and  the  omnipo- 
tence of  dependence.  It  is  much  to  say  'for  that  He  is 
strong  in  might,  not  one  of  these  faileth,'  it  is  more 
to  say  '  He  giveth  power  to  them  that  have  failed ;  and 
to  them  that  have  no  might  He  increaseth  strength.' 
The  Gospel  is  the  gift  of  pardon  for  holiness,  and  its 


V.16]  STRENGTHENED  WITH  MIGHT    135 

inmost  and  most  characteristic  bestownieut  is  the 
bestowment  of  a  new  power  for  obedience  and  service. 

And  that  power,  as  I  need  not  remind  you,  is  given 
to  us  through  the  gift  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  very 
name  of  that  Spirit  is  the  'Spirit  of  Might.'  Christ 
spoke  to  us  about  being  '  endued  with  power  from  on 
high.'  The  last  of  His  promises  that  dropped  from  His 
lips  upon  earth  was  the  promise  that  His  followers 
should  receive  the  power  of  the  Spirit  coming  upon 
them.  Wheresoever  in  the  early  histories  we  read  of 
a  man  who  was  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  we  read  that 
he  was  '  full  of  power.'  According  to  the  teaching  of 
this  Apostle,  God  hath  given  us  the  '  Spirit  of  power,' 
which  is  also  the  Spirit  '  of  love  and  of  a  sound  mind.' 
So  the  strength  that  we  must  have,  if  we  have  strength 
at  all,  is  the  strength  of  a  Divine  Spirit,  not  our  own, 
that  dwells  in  us,  and  works  through  us. 

And  there  is  nothing  in  that  which  need  startle  or 
surprise  any  man  who  believes  in  a  living  God  at  all, 
and  in  the  possibility,  therefore,  of  a  connection  between 
the  Great  Spirit  and  all  the  human  spirits  which  are 
His  children.  I  would  maintain,  in  opposition  to  many 
m.odern  conceptions,  the  actual  supernatural  character 
of  the  gift  that  is  bestowed  upon  every  Christian  soul. 
My  reading  of  the  New  Testament  is  that  as  distinctly 
above  the  order  of  material  nature  as  is  any  miracle,  is 
the  gift  that  flows  into  a  believing  heart.  There  is  a 
direct  passage  between  God  and  my  spirit.  It  lies 
open  to  His  touch ;  all  the  paths  of  its  deep  things  can 
be  trodden  by  Him.  You  and  I  act  upon  one  another 
from  without,  He  acts  upon  us  within.  We  wish  one 
another  blessings ;  He  gives  the  blessings.  We  try  to 
train,  to  educate,  to  incline,  and  dispose,  by  the  presen- 
tation of  motives  and  the  urging  of  reasons ;  He  can 


136    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

plant  in  a  heart  by  His  own  divine  husbandry  the  seed 
that  shall  blossom  into  immortal  life.  And  so  the 
Christian  Church  is  a  great,  continuous,  supernatural 
community  in  the  midst  of  the  material  world;  and 
every  believing  soul,  because  it  possesses  something  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  has  been  the  seat  of  a  miracle 
as  real  and  true  as  when  He  said  '  Lazarus,  come  forth!' 
Precisely  this  teaching  does  our  Lord  Himself  present 
for  our  acceptance  when  He  sets  side  by  side,  as 
mutually  illustrative,  as  belonging  to  the  same  order 
of  supernatural  phenomena,  '  the  hour  is  coming  when 
the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God  and 
they  that  hear  shall  live,'  which  is  the  supernatural 
resurrection  of  souls  dead  in  sin, — and  '  the  hour  is 
coming  in  the  which  all  that  are  in  the  graves  shall 
hear  His  voice,  and  shall  come  forth,'  which  is  the 
future  resurrection  of  the  body,  in  obedience  to  His 
will. 

So,  Christian  men  and  women,  do  you  set  clearly 
before  you  this :  that  God's  purpose  with  you  is  but 
begun  when  He  has  forgiven  you,  that  He  forgives 
you  for  a  design,  that  it  is  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that 
you  have  not  reached  the  conception  of  the  large 
things  which  He  intends  for  you  unless  you  have  risen 
to  this  great  thought — He  means  and  wishes  that  you 
should  be  strong  with  the  strength  of  His  own  Divine 
Spirit. 

II.  Now  notice,  next,  that  this  Divine  Power  has  its 
seat  in,  and  is  intended  to  influence  the  whole  of,  the 
inner  life. 

As  my  text  puts  it,  we  may  be  'strengthened  with 
might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man.'  By  the  '  inner 
man'  I  suppose,  is  not  meant  the  new  creation  through 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  which  this  Apostle  calls  '  the  new 


V.16]    STRENGTHENED  WITH  MIGHT    137 

man,'  but  simply  what  Peter  calls  the  *  hidden  man  of 
the  heart,'  the  '  soul,'  or  unseen  self  as  distinguished 
from  the  visible  material  body  which  it  animates  and 
informs.  It  is  this  inner  self,  then,  in  which  the  Spirit 
of  God  is  to  dwell,  and  into  which  it  is  to  breathe 
strength.  The  leaven  is  hid  deep  in  three  measures 
of  meal  until  the  whole  be  leavened.  And  the  point  to 
mark  is  that  the  whole  inward  region  which  makes  up 
the  true  man  is  the  field  upon  which  this  Divine  Spirit 
is  to  work.  It  is  not  a  bit  of  your  inward  life  that  is 
to  be  hallowed.  It  is  not  any  one  aspect  of  it  that  is 
to  be  strengthened,  but  it  is  the  whole  intellect,  affec- 
tions, desires,  tastes,  powers  of  attention,  conscience, 
imagination,  memory,  will.  The  whole  inner  man  in 
all  its  corners  is  to  be  filled,  and  to  come  under  the 
influence  of  this  power,  'until  there  be  no  part  dark, 
as  when  the  bright  shining  of  a  candle  giveth  thee 
light.' 

There  is  no  part  of  my  being  that  is  not  patent  to 
the  tread  of  this  Divine  Guest.  There  are  no  rooms  of 
the  house  of  my  spirit  into  which  He  may  not  go.  Let 
Him  come  with  the  master  key  in  His  hand  into  all 
the  dim  chambers  of  your  feeble  nature ;  and  as  the 
one  life  is  light  in  the  eye,  and  colour  in  the  cheek,  and 
deftness  in  the  fingers,  and  strength  in  the  arm,  and 
pulsation  in  the  heart,  so  He  will  come  with  the  mani- 
fold results  of  the  one  gift  to  j'ou.  He  will  strengthen 
your  understandings,  and  make  you  able  for  loftier 
tasks  of  intellect  and  of  reason  than  you  can  face  in 
your  unaided  power ;  He  will  dwell  in  your  affections 
and  make  them  vigorous  to  lay  hold  upon  the  holy 
things  that  are  above  their  natural  inclination,  and 
will  make  it  certain  that  their  reach  shall  not  be 
beyond  their  grasp,  as,  alas !  it  so  often  is  in  the  sad- 


138    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

ness  and  disappointments  of  human  love.  He  will 
come  into  that  feeble,  vacillating,  wayward  will  of 
yours,  that  is  only  obstinate  in  its  adherence  to  the 
low  and  the  evil,  as  some  foul  creature,  that  one  may 
try  to  wrench  away,  digs  its  claws  into  corru^Dtion  and 
holds  on  by  that.  He  will  lift  your  will  and  make  it 
fix  upon  the  good  and  abominate  the  evil,  and  through 
the  whole  being  He  will  pour  a  great  tide  of  strength 
which  shall  cover  all  the  weakness.  He  will  be  like 
some  subtle  elixir  which,  taken  into  the  lips,  steals 
through  a  pallid  and  wasted  frame,  and  brings  back  a 
glow  to  the  cheek  and  a  lustre  to  the  eye,  and  swift- 
ness to  the  brain,  and  power  to  the  whole  nature.  Or 
as  some  plant,  drooping  and  flagging  beneath  the  hot 
rays  of  the  sun,  when  it  has  the  scent  of  water  given 
to  it,  will,  in  all  its  parts,  stiffen  and  erect  itself,  so, 
when  the  Spirit  is  poured  out  on  men,  their  whole 
nature  is  invigorated  and  helped. 

That  indwelling  Spirit  will  be  a  power  for  suffering. 
The  parallel  passage  to  this  in  the  twin  epistle  to  the 
Colossians  is — 'strengthened  with  all  might  unto  all 
patience  and  long-suffering  with  gentleness.'  Ah, 
brethren !  unless  this  Divine  Spirit  were  a  power  for 
patience  and  endurance  it  were  no  power  suited  to  us 
poor  men.  So  dark  at  times  is  every  life ;  so  full  at 
times  of  discouragements,  of  dreariness,  of  sadness,  of 
loneliness,  of  bitter  memories,  and  of  fading  hopes  does 
the  human  heart  become,  that  if  we  are  to  be  strong 
we  must  have  a  strength  that  will  manifest  itself  most 
chiefly  in  this,  that  it  teaches  us  how  to  bear,  how  to 
weep,  how  to  submit. 

And  it  will  be  a  power  for  conflict.  "We  have  all  of  us, 
in  the  discharge  of  duty  and  in  the  meeting  of  tenjpta- 
tion,  to  face  such  tremendous  antagonisms  that  unless 


V.  16]  STRENGTHENED  WITH  MIGHT    139 

we  have  grace  given  to  us  which  will  enable  us  to 
resist,  we  shall  be  overcome  and  swept  away.  God's 
power  given  by  the  Divine  Spirit  does  not  absolve 
us  from  the  fight,  but  it  fits  us  for  the  fight.  It  is  not 
given  in  order  that,  holiness  may  be  won  without  a 
struggle,  as  some  people  seem  to  think,  but  it  is  given 
to  us  in  order  that  in  the  struggle  for  holiness  we  may 
never  lose  '  one  jot  of  heart  or  hope,'  but  may  be  '  able 
to  withstand  in  the  evil  day,  and  having  done  all  to 
stand.' 

It  is  a  power  for  service.  '  Tarry  ye  in  Jerusalem  till 
ye  be  endued  with  power  from  on  high.'  There  is  no 
such  force  for  the  spreading  of  Christ's  Kingdom,  and 
the  witness-bearing  work  of  His  Church,  as  the  pos- 
session of  this  Divine  Spirit.  Plunged  into  that  fiery 
baptism,  the  selfishness  and  the  sloth,  which  stand  in 
the  way  of  so  many  of  us,  are  all  consumed  and  annihi- 
lated, and  we  are  set  free  for  service  because  the  bonds 
that  bound  us  are  burnt  up  in  the  merciful  furnace  of 
His  fiery  power. 

•  Ye  shall  be  strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit 
in  the  inner  man' — a  power  that  will  fill  and  flood  all 
your  nature  if  you  will  let  it,  and  will  make  you  strong 
to  suffer,  strong  to  combat,  strong  to  serve,  and  to 
witness  for  your  Lord. 

III.  And  now,  lastly,  let  me  point  you  still  further 
to  the  measure  of  this  power.  It  is  limitless  with  the 
boundlessness  of  God  Himself.  '  That  he  would  grant 
you '  is  the  daring  petition  of  the  Apostle, '  according 
to  the  riches  of  His  glory  to  be  strengthened.' 

There  is  the  measure.  There  is  no  limit  except  the 
uncounted  wealth  of  His  own  self-manifestation,  the 
flashing  light  of  revealed  divinity.  Whatsoever  there 
is  of  splendour  in  that,  whatsoever  there  is  of  power 


UO    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

there,  in  these  and  in  nothing  on  this  side  of  them,  lies 
the  limit  of  the  possibilities  of  a  Christian  life.  Of 
course  there  is  a  working  limit  at  each  moment,  and 
that  is  our  capacity  to  receive ;  but  that  capacity  varies, 
may  vary  indefinitely,  may  become  greater  and  greater 
beyond  our  count  or  measurement.  Our  hearts  may 
be  more  and  more  capable  of  God ;  and  in  the  measure 
in  which  they  are  capable  of  Him  they  shall  be  filled 
by  Him.  A  limit  which  is  always  shifting  is  no  limit 
at  all.  A  kingdom,  the  boundaries  of  which  are  not 
the  same  from  one  year  to  another^  by  reason  of  its 
own  inherent  expansive  power,  may  be  said  to  have 
no  fixed  limit.  And  so  we  appropriate  and  enclose,  as 
it  were,  within  our  own  little  fence,  a  tiny  portion  of 
the  great  prairie  that  rolls  boundlessly  to  the  horizon. 
But  to-morrow  we  may  enclose  more,  if  we  will,  and 
more  and  more ;  and  so  ever  onwards,  for  all  that  is 
God's  is  ours,  and  He  has  given  us  His  whole  self  to 
use  and  to  possess  through  our  faith  in  His  Son.  A 
thimble  can  only  take  up  a  thimbleful  of  the  ocean, 
but  what  if  the  thimble  be  endowed  with  a  power  of 
expansion  which  has  no  term  known  to  men  ?  May  it 
not,  then,  be  that  some  time  or  other  it  shall  be  able 
to  hold  so  much  of  the  infinite  depth  as  now  seems  a 
dream  too  audacious  to  be  realised  ? 

So  it  is  with  us  and  God.  He  lets  us  come  into  the 
vaults,  as  it  were,  where  in  piles  and  masses  the  ingots 
of  uncoined  and  uncounted  gold  are  stored  and  stacked; 
and  He  says,  'Take  as  much  as  you  like  to  carry.' 
There  is  no  limit  except  the  riches  of  His  glory. 

And  now,  dear  friends,  remember  that  this  great 
gift,  offered  to  each  of  us,  is  offered  on  conditions.  To 
you  professing  Christians  especially  I  speak.  You  will 
never  get  it  unless  you  want  it,  and  some  of  you  do  not 


V.16]  STRENGTHENED  WITH  MIGHT    141 

want  it.  There  are  plenty  of  people  who  call  them- 
selves Christian  men  that  would  not  for  the  life  of 
them  know  what  to  do  with  this  great  gift  if  they 
had  it.  You  will  get  it  if  you  desire  it.  *  Ye  have  not 
because  ye  ask  not.' 

Oh!  when  one  contrasts  the  largeness  of  God's 
promises  and  the  miserable  contradiction  to  them 
which  the  average  Christian  life  of  this  generation 
presents,  what  can  we  say?  'Hath  His  mercy  clean 
gone  for  ever?  Doth  His  promise  fail  for  evermore?' 
Ye  weak  Christian  people,  born  weakling  and  weak 
ever  since,  as  so  many  of  you  are,  open  your  mouths 
wide.  Rise  to  the  height  of  the  expectations  and  the 
desires  which  it  is  our  sin  not  to  cherish ;  and  be  sure 
of  this,  as  we  ask  so  shall  we  receive.  'Ye  are  not 
straitened  in  God.'  Alas !  alas !  '  ye  are  straitened  in 
yourselves.' 

And  mind,  there  must  be  self-suppression  if  there  is 
to  be  the  triumph  of  a  divine  power  in  you.  You  can- 
not fight  with  both  classes  of  weapons.  The  human 
must  die  if  the  divine  is  to  live.  The  life  of  nature, 
dependence  on  self,  must  be  weakened  and  subdued  if 
the  life  of  God  is  to  overcome  and  to  fill  you.  You 
must  be  able  to  say  '  Not  I ! '  or  you  will  never  be  able 
to  say  '  Christ  liveth  in  me.'  The  patriarch  who  over- 
came halted  on  his  thigh;  and  all  the  life  of  nature 
was  lamed  and  made  impotent  that  the  life  of  grace 
might  prevail.  So  crush  self  by  the  power  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  Christ,  if  you  would  that  the  Spirit  should 
bear  rule  over  you. 

See  to  it,  too,  that  you  use  what  you  have  of  that 
Divine  Spirit.  'To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given/ 
What  is  the  use  of  more  water  being  sent  down  the 
mill  lade,  if  the  water  that  does  come  in  it  all  runs 


142    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  m, 

away  at  the  bottom,  and  none  of  it  goes  over  the 
wheel  ?  Use  the  power  you  have,  and  power  will  come 
to  the  faithful  steward  of  what  he  possesses.  He  that 
is  faithful  in  a  little  shall  get  much  to  be  faithful  over. 
Ask  and  use,  and  the  ancient  thanksgiving  may  still 
come  from  your  lips.  •  In  the  day  when  I  cried,  Thou 
answeredst  me,  and  strengthenedst  me  with  strength 
in  my  soul.' 


THE  INDWELLING  CHRIST 

'  That  Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith ;  ye  being  rooted  and  grounded 
in  love.'— Eph.  iii.  17. 

We  have  here  the  second  step  of  the  great  staircase  by 
which  Paul's  fervent  desires  for  his  Ephesian  friends 
climbed  towards  that  wonderful  summit  of  his  prayers 
— which  is  ever  approached,  never  reached, — 'that  ye 
might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.' 

Two  remarks  of  an  expository  character  will  prepare 
the  way  for  the  lessons  of  these  verses.  The  first  is  as 
to  the  relation  of  this  clause  to  the  preceding.  It 
might  appear  at  first  sight  to  be  simply  parallel  with 
the  former,  expressing  substantially  the  same  ideas 
under  a  somewhat  difrerent  aspect.  The  operation  of 
the  strength-giving  Spirit  in  the  inner  man  might  very 
naturally  be  supposed  to  be  equivalent  to  the  dwelling 
of  Christ  in  our  hearts  by  faith.  So  many  commenta- 
tors do,  in  fact,  take  it ;  but  I  think  that  the  two  ideas 
may  be  distinguished,  and  that  we  are  to  see  in  the 
words  of  our  text,  as  I  have  said,  the  second  step  in 
this  prayer,  which  is  in  some  sense  a  result  of  the 
'strengthening  with  might  by  the  Spirit  in  the  inner 
man.'    I  need  not  enter  in  detail  into  the  reasons  for 


V.17]      THE  INDWELLING  CHRIST        143 

taking  this  view  of  the  connection  of  the  clause,  which 
is  obviously  in  accordance  with  the  climbing-up  struc- 
ture of  the  whole  verse.  It  is  enough  to  point  it  out 
as  the  basis  of  my  further  remarks. 

And  now  the  second  observation  with  which  I  will 
trouble  you,  before  I  come  to  deal  with  the  thoughts 
of  the  verse,  is  as  to  the  connection  of  the  last  words 
of  it.  You  may  observe  that  in  reading  the  words  of 
my  text  I  omitted  the  'that'  which  stands  in  the 
centre  of  the  verse.  I  did  so  because  the  words,  '  Ye 
being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,'  in  the  original,  do 
stand  before  the  '  that,'  and  are  distinctly  separated  by 
it  from  the  subsequent  clause.  They  ought  not,  there- 
fore, to  be  shifted  forward  into  it,  as  our  translators 
and  the  Revised  Version  have,  I  think,  unfortunately 
done,  unless  there  w^ere  some  absolute  necessity  either 
from  meaning  or  from  construction.  I  do  not  think 
that  this  is  the  case ;  but  on  the  contrary,  if  they  are 
carried  forward  into  the  next  clause,  which  describes 
the  result  of  Christ's  dwelling  in  our  hearts  by  faith, 
they  break  the  logical  flow  of  the  sentence  by  mixing 
together  result  and  occasion.  And  so  I  attach  them  to 
the  first  part  of  this  verse,  and  take  them  to  express  at 
once  the  consequence  of  Christ's  dwelling  in  the  heart 
by  faith,  and  the  preparation  or  occasion  for  our  being 
able  to  comprehend  and  know  the  love  of  Christ  which 
passeth  knowledge.  Now  that  is  all  with  which  I  need 
trouble  you  in  the  way  of  explanation  of  the  meaning 
of  the  words.  Let  us  come  now  to  deal  with  their 
substance. 

I.  Consider  the  Indwelling  of  Christ,  as  desired  by 
the  Apostle  for  all  Christians. 

To  begin  with,  let  me  say  in  the  plainest,  simplest, 
strongest  way  that  I  can,  that  that  dwelling  of  Christ 


144   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

in  the  believing  heart  is  to  be  regarded  as  being  a 
plain  literal  fact. 

To  a  man  who  does  not  believe  in  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ,  of  course  that  is  nonsense,  but  to  those  of 
us  who  do  see  in  Him  the  manifestorl  incarnate  God, 
there  ought  to  be  no  difficulty  in  accepting  this  as  the 
simple  literal  force  of  the  words  before  us,  that  in  every 
soul  where  faith,  howsoever  feeble,  has  been  exercised, 
there  Jesus  Christ  does  verily  abide. 

It  is  not  to  be  weakened  down  into  any  notion  of 
participation  in  His  likeness,  sympathy  with  His  char- 
acter, submission  to  His  influence,  following  His  ex- 
ample, listening  to  His  instruction,  or  the  like.  A  dead 
Plato  may  so  influence  his  followers,  but  that  is  not 
how  a  living  Christ  influences  His  disciples.  What  is 
meant  is  no  mere  influence  derived  but  separable  from 
Him,  however  blessed  and  gracious  that  influence  might 
be,  but  it  is  the  presence  of  His  own  self,  exercising 
influences  which  are  inseparable  from  His  presence, 
and  only  to  be  realised  when  He  dwells  in  us. 

I  think  that  Christian  people  as  a  rule  do  far  too 
little  turn  their  attention  to  this  aspect  of  the  Gospel 
teaching,  and  concentrate  their  thoughts  far  too  much 
upon  that  which  is  unspeakably  precious  in  itself,  but 
does  not  exhaust  all  that  Christ  is  to  us,  viz.  the 
work  that  He  wrought  for  us  upon  Calvary ;  or  to  take 
a  step  further,  the  work  that  He  is  now  carrying  on  for 
us  as  our  Intercessor  and  Advocate  in  the  heavens. 
You  who  listen  to  me  Sunday  after  Sunday  will  not 
suspect  me  of  seeking  to  minimise  either  of  these  two 
aspects  of  our  Lord's  mission  and  operation,  but  I  do 
believe  that  very  largely  the  glad  thought  of  an  in- 
dwelling Christ,  who  actually  abides  and  works  in  our 
hearts,  and   is    not    only  for  us   in   the  heavens,  or 


r.  17]      THE  INDWELLING  CHRIST         145 

with  us  by  some  kind  of  impalpable  and  metaphorical 
presence,  but  in  simple,  that  is  to  say,  in  spiritual  reality 
is  in  our  spirits,  has  faded  away  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  Christian  Church. 

And  so  we  are  called  'mystics'  when  we  preach 
Christ  in  the  heart.  Ah,  brother  !  unless  your  Christi- 
anity be  in  the  good  deep  sense  of  the  word  '  mystical,' 
it  is  mechanical,  which  is  worse.  I  preach,  and  rejoice 
that  I  have  to  preach,  a  '  Christ  that  died,  yea !  rather 
that  is  risen  again ;  who  is  even  at  the  right  hand  of 
God,  who  also  maketh  intercession  for  us.'  Nor  do  I 
stop  there,  but  I  preach  a  Christ  that  is  in  us,  dwelling 
in  our  hearts  if  we  be  His  at  all. 

Well,  then,  further  observe  that  the  special  emphasis 
of  the  prayer  here  is  that  this  '  indwelling  '  may  be  an 
unbroken  and  permanent  one.  Any  of  you  who  can 
consult  the  original  for  yourselves  will  see  that  the 
Apostle  here  uses  a  compound  word  which  conveys  the 
idea  of  intensity  and  continuity.  What  he  desires, 
then,  is  not  merely  that  these  Ephesian  Christians  may 
have  occasional  visits  of  the  indwelling  Lord,  or  that 
at  some  lofty  moments  of  spiritual  enthusiasm  they 
may  be  conscious  that  He  is  with  them,  but  that 
always,  in  an  unbroken  line  of  deep,  calm  receptive- 
ness,  they  may  possess,  and  know  that  they  possess,  an 
indwelling  Saviour. 

And  this,  I  think,  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  we  may 
and  must  distinguish  between  the  apparently  very 
similar  petition  in  the  previous  verse,  about  which  we 
spoke  in  the  last  sermon,  and  the  petition  which  is  now 
occupying  us ;  for,  as  I  shall  have  to  show  you,  it  is 
only  as  *  strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the 
inner  man,'  that  we  are  capable  of  the  continuous 
abiding  of  that  Lord  within  us. 

K 


146   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iii. 

Oh  I  what  a  contrast  to  that  idea  of  a  perpetual  un- 
broken inhabitation  of  Jesus  in  our  spirits  and  to  our 
consciousness  is  presented  by  our  ordinary  life !  '  Why 
shouldst  Thou  be  as  a  wayfaring  man  that  turneth 
aside  to  tarry  for  a  night?'  raay  well  be  the  utterance 
of  the  average  Christian.  We  might,  with  unbroken 
blessedness,  possess  Him  in  our  hearts,  and  instead,  we 
have  only  'visits  short  and  far  between.'  Alas,  alas, 
how  often  do  we  drive  away  that  indwelling  Christ, 
because  our  hearts  are  'foul  with  sin,'  so  that  He 
•Can  but  listen  at  the  gate 
And  hear  the  household  jar  within.' 

Christian  men  and  women !  here  is  the  ideal  of  our 
lives,  capable  of  being  approximated  to  (if  not  abso- 
lutely in  its  entirety  reached)  with  far  more  perfection 
than  it  ever  has  yet  been  by  us.  There  might  be  a 
line  of  light  never  interrupted  running  all  through  our 
religious  experience.  Instead  of  that  there  is  a  light 
point  here,  and  a  great  gap  of  darkness  there,  like  the 
straggling  lamps  by  the  wayside  in  the  half-lighted 
squalid  suburbs  of  some  great  city.  Is  that  your 
Christian  life,  broken  by  many  interruptions,  and 
having  often  sounding  through  it  the  solemn  words  of 
the  retreating  divinity  which  the  old  profound  legend 
tells  us  were  heard  the  night  before  the  Temple  on 
Zion  was  burnt : — '  Let  us  depart  ?  '  'I  will  arise  and 
return  unto  My  place  till  they  acknowledge  their 
offences.'  God  means  and  wishes  that  Christ  may 
continuously  dwell  in  our  hearts.  Does  He  to  your 
own  consciousness  dwell  in  yours  ? 

And  then  the  last  thought  connected  with  this  first 
part  of  my  subject  is  that  the  heart,  strengthened  by 
the  Spirit,  is  fitted  to  be  the  Temple  of  the  indwelling 
Christ.     How  shall  we  prepare  the  chamber  for  such 


V.  17]      THE  INDWELLING  CHRIST        147 

a  guest?  How  shall  some  poor  occupant  of  some 
wretched  hut  by  the  wayside  fit  it  up  for  the  abode 
of  a  prince?  The  answer  lies  in  these  words  that 
precede  my  text.  You  cannot  strengthen  the  rafters 
and  lift  the  roof  and  adorn  the  halls  and  furnish  the 
floor  in  a  manner  befitting  the  coming  of  the  King; 
but  you  can  turn  to  that  Divine  Spirit  who  will  expand 
and  embellish  and  invigorate  your  whole  spirit,  and 
make  it  capable  of  receiving  the  indwelling  Christ. 

That  these  two  things  which  are  here  considered  as 
cause  and  effect  may,  in  another  aspect,  be  considered 
as  but  varying  phases  of  the  same  truth,  is  only  part 
of  the  depth  and  felicity  of  the  teaching  that  is  here  ; 
for  if  you  come  to  look  more  deeply  into  it,  the  Spirit 
that  strengtheneth  with  might  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ ; 
and  He  dwells  in  men's  hearts  by  His  own  Spirit.  So 
that  the  apparent  confusion,  arising  from  Tvhat  in 
other  places  are  regarded  as  identical  being  here  con- 
ceived as  cause  and  effect,  is  no  confusion  at  all,  but 
is  explained  and  vindicated  by  the  deep  truth  that 
nothing  but  the  indwelling  of  the  Christ  can  fit  for 
the  indwelling  of  the  Christ.  The  lesser  gift  of  His 
presence  prepares  for  the  greater  measure  of  it ;  the 
transitory  inhabitation  for  the  more  permanent.  Where 
He  comes  in  smaller  measure  He  opens  the  door  and 
makes  the  heart  capable  of  His  own  more  entire  in- 
dwelling. 'Unto  him  that  hath  shall  be  given.'  It  is 
Christ  in  the  heart  that  makes  the  heart  fit  for  Christ 
to  dwell  in  the  heart.  You  cannot  do  it  by  your  own 
power;  turn  to  Him  and  let  Him  make  you  temples 
meet  for  Himself. 

II.  So  now,  in  the  second  place,  notice  the  open  door 
through  which  the  Christ  comes  in  to  dwell — '  that  He 
may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith.' 


148    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iii. 

More  accurately  we  may  render  '  through  faith,'  and 
might  even  venture  to  suppose  that  the  thought  of 
faith  as  an  open  door  through  v^hich  Christ  passes  into 
the  heart,  floated  half  distinctly  hefore  the  Apostle's 
mind.  Be  that  as  it  may,  at  all  events  faith  is  here 
represented  as  the  means  or  condition  through  w^hich 
this  dw^elling  takes  effect.  You  have  but  to  believe  in 
Him  and  He  comes,  drawn  from  heaven,  floating  down 
on  a  sunbeam,  as  it  were,  and  enters  into  the  heart 
and  abides  there. 

Trust,  which  is  faith,  is  self -distrust.  '  I  dwell  in  the 
high  and  holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite 
and  humble  spirit.'  Rivers  do  not  run  on  the  mountain 
tops,  but  down  in  the  valleys.  So  the  heart  that  is 
lifted  up  and  self-complacent  has  no  dew  of  His 
blessing  resting  upon  it,  but  has  the  curse  of  Gilboa 
adhering  to  its  barrenness ;  but  the  low  lands,  the 
humble  and  the  lowly  hearts,  are  they  in  which  the 
waters  that  go  softly  scoop  their  couvbe  and  diffuse 
their  blessings.  Faith  is  self-distrust.  Self-distrust 
brings  the  Christ. 

Faith  is  desire.  Never,  never  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  it  been  or  can  it  be  that  a  longing  towards 
Him  shall  be  a  longing  thrown  back  unsatisfied  upon 
itself.  You  have  but  to  trust,  and  you  possess.  We 
open  the  door  for  the  entrance  of  Christ  by  the  simple 
act  of  faith,  and  blessed  be  His  name !  He  can  squeeze 
Himself  through  a  very  little  chink,  and  He  does  not 
require  that  the  gates  should  be  flung  wide  open  in 
order  that,  with  some  of  His  blessings,  He  may  come  in. 

Mystical  Christianity  of  the  false  sort  has  much  to 
say  about  the  indwelling  of  God  in  the  soul,  but  it 
spoils  all  its  teaching  by  insisting  upon  it  that  the  con- 
dition on  which  God  dwells  in  the  soul  is  the  soul's 


V.  17]      THE  INDWELLING  CHRIST        149 

purifying  itself  to  receive  Him.  But  you  cannot  cleanse 
your  hearts  so  as  to  bring  Christ  into  them,  you  must 
let  Him  come  and  cleanse  them  by  the  process  of  His 
coming,  and  fit  them  thereby  for  His  own  indwelling. 
And,  assuredly,  He  will  so  come,  purging  us  from  our 
evil  and  abiding  in  our  hearts. 

But  do  not  forget  that  the  faith  which  brings  Christ 
into  the  spirit  must  be  a  faith  which  works  by  love,  if 
it  is  to  keep  Christ  in  the  spirit.  You  cannot  bring 
that  Lord  into  your  hearts  by  anything  that  you  do. 
The  man  who  cleanses  his  own  soul  by  his  own 
strength,  and  so  expects  to  draw  God  into  it,  has  made 
the  mistake  which  Christ  pointed  out  when  He  told  us 
that  when  the  unclean  spirit  is  gone  out  of  a  man 
he  leaves  his  house  empty,  though  it  be  swept  and 
garnished.  Moral  reformation  may  turn  out  the 
devils,  it  will  never  bring  in  God,  and  in  the  empti- 
ness of  the  swept  and  garnished  heart  there  is  an 
invitation  to  the  seven  to  come  back  again  and  fill  it. 

And  whilst  that  is  true,  remember,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  a  Christian  man  can  drive  away  his  Master 
by  evil  works.  The  sweet  song-birds  and  the  honey- 
making  bees  are  said  always  to  desert  a  neighbourhood 
before  a  pestilence  breaks  out  in  it.  And  if  I  may  so 
say,  similarly  quick  to  feel  the  first  breath  of  the 
pestilence  is  the  presence  of  the  Christ  which  cannot 
dwell  with  evil.  You  bring  Christ  into  your  heart  by 
faith,  without  any  work  at  all ;  you  keep  Him  there  by 
a  faith  which  produces  holiness. 

III.  And  the  last  point  is  the  gifts  of  this  indwelling 
Christ, — 'ye  being,'  or  as  the  words  might  more  accu- 
rately be  translated,  'Ye  having  been  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love.' 

Where  He  comes  He  comes  not  empty-handed.     He 


150   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

brings  His  own  love,  and  that,  consciously  received, 
produces  a  corresponding  and  answering  love  in  our 
hearts  to  Him.  So  there  is  no  need  to  ask  the  question 
here  whether  '  love '  means  Christ's  love  to  me,  or  my 
love  to  Christ.  From  the  nature  of  the  case  both  are 
included — the  recognition  of  His  love  and  the  response 
by  mine  are  the  result  of  His  entering  into  the  heart. 
This  love,  the  recognition  of  His  and  the  response  by 
mine,  is  represented  in  a  lovely  double  metaphor  in 
these  words  as  being  at  once  the  soil  in  which  our  lives 
are  rooted  and  grow,  and  the  foundation  on  which  our 
lives  are  built  and  are  steadfast. 

There  is  no  need  to  enlarge  upon  these  two  things, 
but  let  me  just  touch  them  for  a  moment.  Where 
Christ  abides  in  a  man's  heart,  love  will  be  the  very 
soil  in  which  his  life  will  be  rooted  and  grow.  That 
love  will  be  the  motive  of  all  service,  it  will  underlie, 
as  its  productive  cause,  all  fruitfulness.  All  goodness 
and  all  beauty  will  be  its  fruit.  The  whole  life  will  be 
as  a  tree  planted  in  this  rich  soil.  And  so  the  life  will 
grow  not  by  effort  only,  but  as  by  an  inherent  power 
drawing  its  nourishment  from  the  soil.  This  is 
blessedness.  It  is  heaven  upon  earth  that  love  should 
be  the  soil  in  which  our  obedience  is  rooted,  and  from 
which  we  draw  all  the  nutriment  that  turns  to  flowers 
and  fruit. 

Where  Christ  dwells  in  the  heart,  love  will  be  the 
foundation  upon  which  our  lives  are  builded  steadfast 
and  sure.  The  blessed  consciousness  of  His  love,  and 
the  joyful  answer  of  my  heart  to  it,  may  become  the 
basis  upon  which  my  whole  being  shall  repose,  the 
underlying  thought  that  gives  security,  serenity,  stead- 
fastness to  my  else  fluctuating  life.  I  may  so  plant 
myself  upon  Him.  as  that  in  Him  I  shall  be  strong, 


vr.i7]  LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  151 

and  then  my  life  will  not  only  grow  like  a  tree  and 
have  its  leaf  green  and  broad,  and  its  fruit  the  natural 
outcome  of  its  vitality,  but  it  will  rise  like  some  stately 
building,  course  by  course,  pillar  by  pillar,  until  at  last 
the  shining  topstone  is  set  there.  He  that  buildeth  on 
that  foundation  shall  never  be  confounded. 

For,  remember  that,  deepest  of  all,  the  words  of  my 
text  may  mean  that  the  Incarnate  Personal  Love 
becomes  the  very  soil  in  which  my  life  is  set  and 
blossoms,  on  which  my  life  is  founded. 

*  Thou,  my  Life,  O  let  me  be 
Booted,  grafted,  built  in  Thee.* 

Christ  is  Love,  and  Love  is  Christ.  He  that  is  rooted 
and  grounded  in  love  has  the  roots  of  his  be  :ng,  and 
the  foundation  of  his  life  fixed  and  fastened  in  that 
Lord. 

So,  dear  brethren,  go  to  Christ  like  those  two  on  the 
road  to  Emmaus ;  and  as  Fra  Angelico  has  painted 
them  on  his  convent  wall,  put  out  your  hands  and  lay 
them  on  His,  and  say,  '  Abide  with  us.  Abide  with  us  !' 
And  the  answer  will  come  : — '  This  is  my  rest  for  ever ; 
here' — mystery  of  love! — 'will  I  dwell,  for  I  have 
desired  it,'  even  the  narrow  room  of  your  poor  heart. 


LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  AND  KNOWN 

•That  ye  .  .  .  may  be  able  to  comprehend  with  all  saints  what  is  the  breadth, 
and  length,  and  depth,  and  height;  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ,  which 
passeth  knowledge.'— Eph.  iii,  18, 19. 

This  constitutes  the  third  of  the  petitions  in  this  great 
prayer  of  Pavil's,  each  of  vrhieh,  as  we  have  had  occa- 
sion to  see  in  former  sermons,  rises  above,  and  is  a 


152    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

consequence  of  the  preceding,  and  leads  on  to,  and  is  a 
cause  or  occasion  of  the  subsequent  one. 

The  two  former  petitions  have  been  for  inward 
strength  communicated  by  a  Divine  Spirit,  in  order 
that  Christ  may  dwell  in  our  hearts,  and  so  we  may  be 
rooted  and  grounded  in  lov^e.  The  result  of  these 
desires  being  realised  in  our  hearts  is  here  set  forth  in 
two  clauses  which  are  substantially  equivalent  in  mean- 
ing. 'To  comprehend '  may  be  taken  as  meaning  nearly 
the  same  as  '  to  know,'  only  that  perhaps  the  former 
expresses  an  act  more  purely  intellectual.  And,  as  we 
shall  see  in  our  next  sermon,  'the  breadth  and  length 
and  depth  and  height '  are  the  unmeasurable  dimen- 
sions of  the  love  which  in  the  second  clause  is  described 
as  '  passing  knowledge.'  I  purpose  to  deal  with  these 
measures  in  a  separate  discourse,  and,  therefore,  omit 
them  from  consideration  now. 

We  have,  then,  mainly  two  thoughts  here,  the  one, 
that  only  the  loving  heart  in  which  Christ  dwells  can 
know  the  love  of  Christ ;  and  the  other  that  even  that 
heart  can  not  know  the  love  of  Christ.  The  paradox  is 
intentional,  but  it  is  intelligible.  Let  me  deal  then,  as 
well  as  I  can,  with  these  two  great  thoughts. 

I.  First,  we  have  this  thought  that  only  the  loving 
heart  can  know  Christ's  love. 

Now  the  Bible  uses  that  word  know  to  express  two 
different  things ;  one  which  we  call  mere  intellectual 
perception;  or  to  put  it  into  plainer  words,  mere  head 
knowledge  such  as  a  man  may  have  about  any  subject 
of  study,  and  the  other  a  deep  and  living  experience 
which  is  possession  before  it  is  knowledge,  and  know- 
ledge because  it  is  possession. 

Now  the  former  of  these  two,  the  knowledge  which 
is  merely  the  work  of  the  understanding,  is,  of  course, 


T».  18,  19]        LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  153 

independent  of  love.  A  man  may  know  all  about 
Christ  and  His  love  witliout  one  spark  of  love  m  his 
heart.  And  there  are  thousands  of  people  who,  as  far 
as  the  mere  intellectual  understanding  is  concerned, 
know  as  much  about  Jesus  Christ  and  His  love  as  the 
saint  who  is  closest  to  the  Throne,  and  yet  have  not 
one  trace  of  love  to  Christ  in  them.  That  is  the  kind 
of  people  that  a  widely  diffused  Christianity  and  a 
habit  of  hearing  sermons  produce.  There  are  plenty 
of  them,  and  some  of  us  among  them,  who,  as  far 
as  their  heads  are  concerned,  know  quite  as  much  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  His  love  as  any  of  us  do,  and  could 
talk  about  it  and  argue  about  it,  and  draw  inferences 
from  it,  and  have  the  whole  system  of  evangelical 
Christianity  at  thoir  fingers'  ends.  Ay  !  It  is  at  their 
fingers'  ends,  it  never  gets  any  nearer  them  than 
that. 

There  is  a  knowledge  with  which  love  has  nothing  to 
do,  and  it  is  a  knowledge  that  for  many  people  is  quite 
sufficient.  '  Knowledge  puffeth  up,'  says  the  Apostle ; 
into  an  unwholesome  bubble  of  self-complacency  that 
will  one  day  be  pricked  and  disappear,  but  'love  buildeth 
up' — a  steadfast,  slowly-rising,  solid  fabric.  There  be 
two  kinds  of  knowledge :  the  mere  rattle  of  notions  in 
a  man's  brain,  like  the  seeds  of  a  withered  poppy-head  ; 
very  many,  very  dry,  very  hard ;  that  will  make  a  noise 
when  you  shake  them.  And  there  is  another  kind  of 
knowledge  which  goes  deep  down  into  the  heart,  and  is 
the  only  knowledge  worth  calling  by  the  name ;  and 
that  knowledge  is  the  child,  as  my  text  has  it,  of  love. 

Now  let  us  think  about  that  for  a  moment.  Love, 
says  Paul,  is  the  parent  of  all  knowledge.  Well,  now, 
can  we  find  any  illustrations  from  similar  facts  in  other 
regions  ?    Yes  I    I  think  so.    How  do  we  know,  really 


154   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iil 

know,  any  emotions  of  any  sort  whatever  ?  Only  by 
experience.  You  may  talk  for  ever  about  feelings,  and 
you  teach  nothing  about  them  to  those  who  have  not 
experienced  them.  The  poets  of  the  world  have  been 
singing  about  love  ever  since  the  world  began.  But  no 
heart  has  learned  what  love  is  from  even  the  sweetest 
and  deepest  songs.  Who  that  is  not  a  father  can  be 
taught  paternal  love  by  words,  or  can  come  to  a  per- 
ception of  it  by  an  effort  of  mind?  And  so  with  all 
other  emotions.  Only  the  lips  that  have  drunk  the  cup 
of  sweetness  or  of  bitterness  can  tell  how  sweet  or  how 
bitter  it  is,  and  even  when  they,  made  wise  by  experi- 
ence, speak  out  their  deepest  hearts,  the  listeners  are 
but  little  the  wiser,  unless  they  too  have  been  scholars 
in  the  same  school.  Experience  is  our  only  teacher  in 
matters  of  feeling  and  emotion,  as  in  the  lower  regions 
of  taste  and  appetite.  A  man  must  be  hungry  to  know^ 
what  hunger  is  ;  he  must  taste  honey  or  wormwood  in 
order  to  know  the  taste  of  honey  or  wormwood,  and  in 
like  manner  he  cannot  know  sorrow  but  by  feeling  its 
ache,  and  must  love  if  he  w^ould  know  love.  Ex- 
perience is  our  only  teacher,  and  her  school-fees  are 
heavy. 

Just  as  a  blind  man  can  never  be  made  to  understand 
the  glories  of  sunrise,  or  the  light  upon  the  far-off 
mountains  ;  just  as  a  deaf  man  may  read  books  about 
acoustics,  but  they  will  not  give  him  a  notion  of  what 
it  is  to  hear  Beethoven,  so  we  must  have  love  to  Christ 
before  we  know  what  love  to  Christ  is,  and  we  must 
consciously  experience  the  love  of  Christ  ere  we  know 
what  the  love  of  Christ  is.  We  must  have  love  to 
Christ  in  order  to  have  a  deep  and  living  possession  of 
love  of  Christ,  though  reciprocally  it  is  also  true  that 
we  must  have  the  love  of  Christ  known  and  felt  by  our 


TB.18,19]      LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  155 

answering  hearts,  if  we  are  ever  to  love  Him  back 
again. 

So  in  all  the  play  and  counterplay  of  love  between 
Christ  and  us,  and  in  all  the  reaction  of  knowledge  and 
love  this  remains  true,  that  we  must  be  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love  ere  we  can  know  love,  and  must  have 
Christ  dwelling  in  our  hearts,  in  order  to  that  deep  and 
living  possession  which,  when  it  is  conscious  of  itself, 
is  knowledge,  and  is  for  ever  alien  to  the  loveless 

heart. 

•  He  must  be  loved,  ere  that  to  you 
He  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love.' 

If  you  want  to  know  the  blessedness  of  the  love  of 
Christ,  love  Him,  and  open  your  hearts  for  the  entrance 
of  His  love  to  you.  Love  is  the  parent  of  deep,  true 
knowledge. 

Of  course,  before  we  can  love  an  unseen  person  and 
believe  in  his  love,  we  must  know  about  him  by  the 
ordinary  means  by  which  we  learn  about  all  persons 
outside  the  circle  of  our  sight.  So  before  the  love 
which  is  thus  the  parent  of  deep,  true  knowledge, 
there  must  be  the  knowledge  by  study  and  credence  of 
the  record  concerning  Christ,  which  supplies  the  facts 
on  which  alone  love  can  be  nourished.  The  under- 
standing has  its  part  to  play  in  leading  the  heart  to 
love,  and  then  the  heart  becomes  the  true  teacher.  He 
that  loveth,  knoweth  God,  for  God  is  love.  He  that  is 
rooted  and  grounded  in  love  because  Christ  dwells  in 
his  heart,  will  be  strengthened  to  know  the  love  in 
which  he  is  rooted.  The  Christ  within  us  will  know  the 
love  of  Christ.  We  must  first '  taste,'  and  then  we  shall 
*  see '  that  the  Lord  is  good,  as  the  Psalmist  puts  it  with 
deep  truth.  First,  the  appropriation  and  feeding  upon 
God,  then  the   clear  perception  by  the  mind   of  tlie 


156    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ra. 

sweetness  in  the  taste.  First  the  enjoyment ;  then  the 
reflection  on  the  enjoyment.  First  the  love ;  and  then 
the  consciousness  of  the  love  of  Christ  possessed  and 
the  love  to  Christ  experienced.  The  heart  must  be 
grounded  in  love  that  the  man  may  know  the  love 
which  passeth  knowledge. 

Then  notice  that  there  is  also  here  another  condition 
for  this  deep  and  blessed  knowledge  laid  down  in  these 
words,  '  That  ye  may  be  able  to  comprehend  with  all 
saints'  That  is  to  say,  our  knowledge  of  the  love  of 
Jesus  Christ  depends  largely  on  our  sanctity.  If  we 
are  pure  we  shall  know.  If  we  were  wholly  devoted 
to  Him  we  should  wholly  know  His  love  to  us,  and  in 
the  measure  in  which  we  are  pure  and  holy  we  shall 
know  it.  This  heart  of  ours  is  like  a  reflecting  tele- 
scope, the  least  breath  upon  the  mirror  of  which  will 
cause  all  the  starry  sublimities  that  it  should  shadow 
forth  to  fade  and  become  dim.  The  slightest  moisture 
in  the  atmosphere,  though  it  be  quite  imperceptible 
where  we  stand,  will  be  dense  enough  to  shut  out  the 
fair,  shining,  snowy  summits  that  girdle  the  horizon 
and  to  leave  nothing  visible  but  the  lowliness  and 
commonplaceness  of  the  prosaic  plain. 

If  you  want  to  know  the  love  of  Christ,  first  of  all, 
that  love  must  purify  your  souls.  But  then  you  must 
keep  your  souls  pure,  assured  of  this,  that  only  the 
single  eye  is  full  of  light,  and  that  they  who  are  not 
•  saints '  grope  in  the  dark  even  at  midday,  and  whilst 
drenched  by  the  sunshine  of  His  love,  are  unconscious 
of  it  altogether.  And  so  we  get  that  miserable  and 
mysterious  tragedy  of  men  and  women  walking  through 
life,  as  many  of  you  are  doing,  in  the  very  blaze  and 
focus  of  Christ's  love,  and  never  beholding  it  nor  know- 
ing anything  about  it. 


V8.18,19]       LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  157 

Observe  again  the  beginning  of  this  path  of  know- 
ledge, which  we  have  thus  traced.  There  must  be,  says 
my  text,  an  indwelling  Christ,  and  so  an  experience, 
deep  and  stable,  of  His  love,  and  then  we  shall  know 
the  love  which  we  thus  experience.  But  how  comes 
that  indwelling?  That  is  the  question  for  us.  The 
knowledge  of  His  love  is  blessedness,  is  peace,  is  love, 
is  everything ;  as  we  shall  see  in  considering  the  last 
stage  of  this  prayer.  That  knowledge  arises  from  our 
fellowship  with  and  our  possession  of  the  love  of  God, 
which  is  in  Jesus  Christ.  How  does  that  fellowship 
with,  and  possession  of  the  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ, 
come?  That  is  the  all-important  question.  What  is 
the  beginning  of  everything  ?  '  That  Christ  may  dwell 
in  your  hearts  by  faith.'  There  is  the  gate  through 
which  you  and  I  may  come,  and  by  which  we  must 
come  if  we  are  to  come  at  all  into  the  possession  and 
perception  of  Christ's  great  love.  Here  is  the  path  of 
knowledge.  First  of  all,  there  must  be  the  simple 
historical  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  Christ's  life  and 
death  for  us,  with  the  Scripture  teaching  of  their 
meaning  and  power.  And  then  we  must  turn  these 
truths  from  mere  notions  into  life.  It  is  not  enough  to 
know  the  love  that  God  has  to  us,  in  that  lower  sense 
of  the  word  'knowledge.'  Many  of  you  know  that, 
who  never  got  any  blessing  out  of  it  all  your  days,  and 
never  will,  unless  you  change.  Besides  the  'knowing' 
there  must  be  the  'believing' of  the  love.  You  must 
translate  the  notion  into  a  living  fact  in  your  experi- 
ence. You  must  pass  from  the  simple  work  of  under- 
standing the  Gospel  to  the  higher  act  of  faith.  You 
must  not  be  contented  with  knowing,  you  must  trust. 
And  if  you  have  done  that  all  the  rest  will  follow,  and 
the  little,  narrow,  low  doorway  of  humble  self-distrust- 


158   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iii. 

ing  faith,  through  which  a  man  creeps  on  his  knees, 
leaving  outside  all  his  sin  and  his  burden,  opens  out 
into  the  temple  palace  —  the  large  place  in  which 
Christ's  love  is  imparted  to  the  soul. 

Brethren,  this  doctrine  of  my  text  ought  to  be  for 
every  one  of  us  a  joy  and  a  gospel.  There  is  no  royal 
road  into  the  sweetness  and  the  depth  of  Christ's  love, 
for  the  wise  or  the  prudent.  The  understanding  is  no 
more  the  organ  for  apprehending  the  love  of  Christ 
than  the  ear  is  the  organ  for  perceiving  light,  or  the 
heart  the  organ  for  learning  mathematics.  Blessed  be 
God!  the  highest  gifts  are  not  bestowed  upon  the 
clever  people,  on  the  men  of  genius  and  the  gifted  ones, 
the  cultivated  and  the  refined,  but  they  are  open  for  all 
men ;  and  when  we  say  that  love  is  the  parent  of 
knowledge,  and  that  the  condition  of  knowing  the 
depths  of  Christ's  heart  is  simple  love  which  is  the  child 
of  faith,  we  are  only  saying  in  other  words  what  the 
Master  embodied  in  His  thanksgiving  prayer,  '  I  thank 
Thee,  Father  !  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  because  Thou 
hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and 
hast  revealed  them  unto  babes.' 

And  that  is  so,  not  because  Christianity,  being  a 
foolish  system,  can  only  address  itself  to  fools ;  not 
because  Christianity,  contradicting  wisdom,  cannot 
expect  to  be  received  by  the  wise  and  the  cultured,  but 
because  a  man's  brains  have  as  little  to  do  with  his 
trustful  acceptance  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a 
man's  eyes  have  to  do  with  his  capacity  of  hearing  a 
voice.  Therefore,  seeing  that  the  wise  and  prudent, 
and  the  cultured,  and  the  clever,  and  the  men  of  genius 
are  always  the  minority  of  the  race,  let  us  vulgar  folk 
that  are  neither  wise,  nor  clever,  nor  cultured,  nor 
geniuses,  be  thankful  that  all  that  has  nothing  to  do 


T8. 18, 19]      LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  159 

with  our  power  of  knowing  and  possessing  the  best 
wisdom  and  the  highest  treasures,  but  that  upon  this 
path  the  wayfaring  man  though  a  fool  shall  not  err,  and 
all  narrow  foreheads  and  limited  understandings,  and 
poor,  simple  uneducated  people  as  well  as  philosophers 
and  geniuses  have  to  learn  love  by  their  hearts  and  not 
by  their  heads,  and  by  a  sense  of  need  and  a  humble 
trust  and  a  daily  experience  have  to  appropriate  and 
suck  out  the  blessing  that  lies  in  the  love  of  Jesua  Christ. 
Blessed  be  His  name !  The  end  of  all  aristocracies  of 
culture  and  superciliousness  of  intellect  lies  in  that 
great  truth  that  we  possess  the  deepest  knowledge 
and  highest  wisdom  when  we  love  and  by  our  love. 

II.  Now  a  word  in  the  next  place  as  to  the  other 
thought  here,  that  not  even  the  loving  heart  can  know 
the  love  of  Christ. 

•  It  passeth  knowledge,'  says  my  text.  Now  I  do  not 
suppose  that  the  paradox  here  of  knowing  the  love  of 
Christ  which  'passeth  knowledge'  is  to  be  explained 
by  taking  '  know  '  and  'knowledge'  in  the  two  different 
senses  which  I  have  already  referred  to,  so  as  that  we 
may  experience,  and  know  by  conscious  experience, 
that  love  which  the  mere  understanding  is  incapable  of 
grasping.  That  of  course  is  an  explanation  which 
might  be  defended,  but  I  take  it  that  it  is  much  truer 
to  the  Apostle's  meaning  to  suppose  that  he  uses  the 
words  'know'  and  '  knowledge '  both  times  in  the  same 
sense.  And  so  we  get  familiar  thoughts  which  I  touch 
upon  very  briefly. 

Our  knowledge  of  Christ's  love,  though  real,  is  incom- 
plete, and  must  always  be  so.  You  and  I  believe,  I 
hope,  that  Christ's  love  is  not  a  man's  love,  or 
at  least  that  it  is  more  than  a  man's  love.  We  believe 
that  it  is  the  flowing  out  to  us  of  the  love  of  God, 


IGO   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESTANS  [ch.  m. 

that  all  the  fulness  of  the  divine  heart  pours  itself 
through  that  narrow  channel  of  the  human  nature  of 
our  Lord,  and  therefore  that  the  flow  is  endless  and  the 
Fountain  infinite. 

I  suppose  I  do  not  need  to  show  you  that  it  is  possible 
for  people  to  have,  and  that  in  fact  we  do  possess  a 
real,  a  valid,  a  reliable  knowledge  of  that  which  is  in- 
finite ;  although  we  possess,  as  a  matter  of  course,  no 
adequate  and  complete  knowledge  of  it.  But  I  only 
remind  you  that  we  have  before  us  in  Christ's  love 
something  which,  though  the  understanding  is  not  by 
itself  able  to  grasp  it,  yet  the  understanding  led  by  the 
heart  can  lay  hold  of,  and  can  find  in  it  infinite 
treasures.  We  can  lay  our  poor  hands  on  His  love  as 
a  child  might  lay  its  tiny  palm  upon  the  base  of  some 
great  cliff,  and  hold  that  love  in  a  real  grasp  of  a  real 
knowledge  and  certitude,  but  we  cannot  put  our  hands 
round  it  and  feel  that  we  co-wiprehend  as  well  as  appre- 
hend.   Let  us  be  thankful  that  we  cannot. 

His  love  can  only  become  to  us  a  subject  of  know- 
ledge as  it  reveals  itself  in  its  manifestations.  Yet 
after  even  these  manifestations  it  remains  unuttered 
and  unutterable  even  by  the  Cross  and  grave,  even  by 
the  glory  and  the  throne.  '  It  is  as  high  as  heaven ; 
what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than  hell ;  what  canst  thou 
know  ?  The  measure  thereof  is  longer  than  the  earth, 
and  broader  than  the  sea.' 

We  have  no  measure  by  which  we  can  translate  into 
the  terms  of  our  experience,  and  so  bring  within  the 
grasp  of  our  minds,  what  was  the  depth  of  the  step, 
which  Christ  took  at  the  impulse  of  His  love,  from  the 
Throne  to  the  Cross.  We  know  not  what  He  fore- 
went ;  we  know  not,  nor  ever  shall  know,  what  depths 
of  darkness  and  soul-agony  He  passed  through  at  the 


vs.  18,19]       LOVE  UNKNOWABLE  161 

bidding  of  His  all-enduring  love  to  us.  Nor  do  we 
know  the  consequences  of  that  great  work  of  emptying 
Himself  of  His  glory.  We  have  no  means  by  which  we 
can  estimate  the  darkness  and  the  depth  of  the  misery 
from  which  we  have  been  delivered,  nor  the  height 
and  the  radiance  of  the  glory  to  which  we  are  to  be 
lifted.  And  until  we  can  tell  and  measure  by  our  com- 
passes both  of  these  two  extremes  of  possible  human 
fate,  till  we  have  gone  down  into  the  deepest  abyss  of 
a  bottomless  pit  of  growing  alienation  and  misery,  and 
up  above  the  highest  reach  of  all  unending  progress 
into  light  and  glory  and  God-likeness,  we  have  not 
stretched  our  compasses  wide  enough  to  touch  the  two 
poles  of  this  great  sphere,  the  infinite  love  of  Jesus 
Christ.  So  we  bow  before  it,  we  know  that  we  possess 
it  with  a  knowledge  more  sure  and  certain,  more  deep 
and  valid,  than  our  knowledge  of  ought  but  ourselves ; 
but  yet  it  is  beyond  our  grasp,  and  towers  above  us 
inaccessible  in  the  altitude  of  its  glory,  and  stretches 
deep  beneath  us  in  the  profundity  of  its  condescension. 
And,  in  like  manner,  we  may  say  that  this  known 
love  passes  knowledge,  inasmuch  as  our  experience  of 
it  can  never  exhaust  it.  We  are  like  the  settlers  on 
some  great  island  continent — as,  for  instance,  on  the 
Australian  continent  for  many  years  after  its  first 
discovery — a  thin  fringe  of  population  round  the  sea- 
board here  and  there,  and  all  the  bosom  of  the  land 
untraversed  and  unknown.  So  after  all  experiences 
of  and  all  blessed  participation  in  the  love  of  Jesus 
Christ  which  come  to  each  of  us  by  our  faith,  we  have 
but  skimmed  the  surface,  but  touched  the  edges,  but 
received  a  drop  of  what,  if  it  should  come  upon  us  in 
fulness  of  flood  like  a  Niagara  of  love,  would  overwhelm 
our  spirits. 

L 


162  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [oh.  in. 

So  we  have  within  our  reach  not  only  the  treasure 
of  creatural  affections  which  bring  gladness  into  life 
when  they  come,  and  darkness  over  it  when  they 
depart ;  we  have  not  only  human  love  which,  if  I  may 
so  say,  is  always  lifting  its  finger  to  its  lips  in  the  act 
of  bidding  us  adieu  ;  but  we  may  possess  a  love  which 
will  abide  with  us  for  ever.  Men  die,  Christ  lives. 
We  can  exhaust  men,  we  cannot  exhaust  Christ.  We 
can  follow  other  objects  of  pursuit,  all  of  which  have 
limitation  to  their  power  of  satisfying  and  pall  upon 
the  jaded  sense  sooner  or  later,  or  sooner  or  later  are 
wrenched  away  from  the  aching  heart.  But  here  is  a 
love  into  which  we  can  penetrate  very  deep  and  fear 
no  exhaustion ;  a  sea  into  which  we  can  cast  our- 
selves, nor  dread  that  like  some  rash  diver  flinging 
himself  into  shallow  water  where  he  thought  there 
was  depth,  we  may  be  bruised  and  wounded.  We  may 
find  in  Christ  the  endless  love  that  an  immortal  heart 
requires.  Enter  by  the  low  door  of  faith,  and  your 
finite  heart  will  have  the  joy  of  an  infinite  love  for 
its  possession,  and  your  mortal  life  will  rise  trans- 
figured into  an  immortal  and  growing  participation 
in  the  immortal  Love  of  the  indwelling  and  inex- 
haustible Christ. 


THE  PARADOX  OF  LOVE'S  MEASURE 

'The  breadth,  and  length,  and  depth,  and  height.'— Eph.  iii.  18. 

Of  what  ?  There  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
answer.  The  next  clause  is  evidently  the  continuation 
of  the  idea  begun  in  that  of  our  text,  and  it  runs :  '  And 
to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge.' 
It  is  the  immeasurable  measure,  then;  the  boundless 


V.  18]  PARADOX  OF  LOVE'S  MEASURE   163 

bounds  and  dimensions  of  the  love  of  Christ  which  fire 
the  Apostle's  thoughts  here.  Of  course,  he  had  no 
separate  idea  in  his  mind  attaching  to  each  of  these 
measures  of  magnitude,  but  he  gathered  them  together 
simply  to  express  the  one  thought  of  the  greatness  of 
Christ's  love.  Depth  and  height  are  the  same  dimen- 
sion measured  from  opposite  ends.  The  one  begins  at 
the  top  and  goes  down,  the  other  begins  at  the  bottom 
and  goes  up,  but  the  distance  is  the  same  in  either  case. 
So  we  have  the  three  dimensions  of  a  solid  here — 
breadth,  length,  and  depth. 

I  suppose  that  I  may  venture  to  use  these  expres- 
sions with  a  somewhat  different  purpose  from  that  for 
which  the  Apostle  employs  them ;  and  to  see  in  each  of 
them  a  separate  and  blessed  aspect  of  the  love  of  God 
in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

I.  What,  then,  is  the  breadth  of  that  love? 

It  is  as  broad  as  humanity.  As  all  the  stars  lie  in  the 
firmament,  so  all  creatures  rest  in  the  heaven  of  His 
love.  Mankind  has  many  common  characteristics.  We 
all  suffer,  we  all  sin,  we  all  hunger,  we  all  aspire,  hope, 
and  die ;  and,  blessed  be  God !  we  all  occupy  precisely 
the  same  relation  to  the  divine  love  which  lies  in  Jesus 
Christ.  There  are  no  step-children  in  God's  great 
family,  and  none  of  them  receives  a  more  grudging  or  a 
less  ample  share  of  His  love  and  goodness  than  every 
other.  Far-stretching  as  the  race,  and  curtaining  it 
over  as  some  great  tent  may  enclose  on  a  festal  day  a 
whole  tribe,  the  breadth  of  Christ's  love  is  the  breadth 
of  humanity. 

And  it  is  universal  because  it  is  divine.  No  human 
mind  can  be  stretched  so  as  to  comprehend  the  whole 
of  the  members  of  mankind,  and  no  human  heart  can 
be  so  emptied  of  self  as  to  be  capable  of  this  absolute 


164   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [cH.ra. 

universality  and  impartiality  of  affection.  But  the  in- 
tellectual difficulties  which  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
width  of  our  affections,  and  the  moral  difficulties  which 
stand  still  more  frowningly  and  forbiddingly  in  the 
way,  have  no  power  over  that  love  of  Christ's  which  is 
close  and  tender,  and  clinging  with  all  the  tenderness 
and  closeness  and  clingingness  of  a  human  affection, 
and  lofty  and  universal  and  passionless  and  perpetual, 
with  all  the  height  and  breadth  and  calmness  and 
eternity  of  a  divine  heart. 

And  this  broad  love,  broad  as  humanity,  is  not 
shallow  because  it  is  broad.  Our  love  is  too  often  like 
the  estuary  of  some  great  stream  which  runs  deep  and 
mighty  as  long  as  it  is  held  within  narrow  banks,  but 
as  soon  as  it  widens  becomies  slow  and  powerless  and 
shallow.  The  intensity  of  human  affection  varies  in- 
versely as  its  extension.  A  universal  philanthropy  is 
a  passionless  sentiment.  But  Christ's  love  is  deep 
though  it  is  wide,  and  suffers  no  diminution  because 
it  is  shared  amongst  a  multitude.  It  is  like  the  great 
feast  that  He  Himself  spread  for  five  thousand  men, 
women,  and  children,  all  seated  on  the  grass,  *  and  they 
did  all  eat  and  were  filled.' 

The  whole  love  is  the  property  of  each  recipient  of  it. 
He  does  not  love  as  we  do,  who  give  a  part  of  our  heart 
to  this  one  and  a  part  to  that  one,  and  share  the  trea- 
sure of  our  affections  amongst  a  multitude.  All  this 
gift  belongs  to  every  one,  just  as  all  the  sunshine 
comes  to  every  eye,  and  as  every  beholder  sees  the 
moon's  path  across  the  dark  waters,  stretching  from 
the  place  where  He  stands  to  the  centre  of  light. 

This  broad  love,  universal  as  humanity,  and  deep  as 
it  is  broad,  is  universal  because  it  is  individual.  You 
and  I  have  to  generalise,  as  we  say,  when  we  try  to 


V.  18]  PARADOX  OF  LOVE'S  MEASURE   165 

extend  our  affections  beyond  the  limits  of  household 
and  family  and  personal  friends,  and  the  generalising 
is  a  sign  of  weakness  and  limitation.  Nobody  can 
love  an  abstraction,  but  God's  love  and  Christ's  love 
do  not  proceed  in  that  fashion.  He  individualises, 
loving  each  and  therefore  loving  all.  It  is  because 
every  man  has  a  space  in  His  heart  singly  and  separ- 
ately and  conspicuously,  that  all  men  have  a  place 
there.  So  our  task  is  to  individualise  this  broad,  uni- 
versal love,  and  to  say,  in  the  simplicity  of  a  glad  faith, 
*  He  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me.'  The  breadth 
is  world-wide,  and  the  whole  breadth  is  condensed  into, 
if  I  may  so  say,  a  shaft  of  light  which  may  find  its  way 
through  the  narrowest  chink  of  a  single  soul.  There 
are  two  ways  of  arguing  about  the  love  of  Christ,  both 
of  them  valid,  and  both  of  them  needing  to  be  em- 
ployed by  us.  We  have  a  right  to  say,  '  He  loves  all, 
therefore  He  loves  me.'  And  we  have  a  right  to  say, 
•He  loves  me,  therefore  He  loves  all.'  For  surely  the 
love  that  has  stooped  to  me  can  never  pass  by  any 
human  soul. 

What  is  the  breadth  of  the  love  of  Christ?  It  is 
broad  as  mankind,  it  is  narrow  as  myself. 

II.  Then,  in  the  next  place,  what  is  the  length  of  the 
love  of  Christ? 

If  we  are  to  think  of  Him  only  as  a  man,  however 
exalted  and  however  perfect,  you  and  I  have  nothing 
in  the  world  to  do  with  His  love.  When  He  was  here 
on  earth  it  may  have  been  sent  down  through  the 
ages  in  some  vague  way,  as  the  shadowy  ghost  of  love 
may  rise  in  the  heart  of  a  great  statesman  or  philan- 
thropist for  generations  yet  unborn,  which  He  dimly 
sees  will  be  affected  by  His  sacrifice  and  service.  But 
we  do  not  call  that  love.    Such  a  poor,  pale,  shadowy 


166   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  ni. 

thing  has  no  right  to  the  warm  throbbing  name ;  has 
no  right  to  demand  from  us  any  answering  thrill  of 
affection.  Unless  you  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as  some- 
thing more  and  other  than  the  purest  and  the  loftiest 
benevolence  that  ever  dwelt  in  human  form,  I  know  of 
no  intelligible  sense  in  which  the  length  of  His  love 
can  be  stretched  to  touch  you. 

If  we  content  ourselves  with  that  altogether  inade- 
quate and  lame  conception  of  Him  and  of  His  nature, 
of  course  there  is  no  present  bond  between  any  man 
upon  earth  and  Him,  and  it  is  absurd  to  talk  about 
His  present  love  as  e'xtending  in  any  way  to  me.  But 
we  have  to  believe,  rising  to  the  full  height  of  the 
Christian  conception  of  the  nature  and  person  of 
Christ,  that  when  He  was  here  on  earth  the  divine  that 
dwelt  in  Him  so  informed  and  inspired  the  human  as 
that  the  love  of  His  man's  heart  was  able  to  grasp  the 
whole,  and  to  separate  the  individuals  who  should 
make  up  the  race  till  the  end  of  time ;  so  as  that  you 
and  I,  looking  back  over  all  the  centuries,  and  asking 
ourselves  w^hat  is  the  length  of  the  love  of  Christ,  can 
say,  'It  stretches  over  all  the  years,  and  it  reached 
then,  as  it  reaches  now,  to  touch  me,  upon  whom  the 
ends  of  the  earth  have  come.'  Its  length  is  conter- 
minous with  the  duration  of  humanity  here  or  yonder. 

That  thought  of  eternal  being,  when  we  refer  it  to 
God,  towers  above  us  and  repels  us ;  and  when  we  turn 
it  to  ourselves  and  think  of  our  own  life  as  unending, 
there  come  a  strangeness  and  an  awe  that  is  almost 
shrinking,  over  the  thoughtful  spirit.  But  when  we 
transmute  it  into  the  thought  of  a  love  whose  length 
is  unending,  then  over  all  the  shoreless,  misty,  melan- 
choly sea  of  eternity,  there  gleams  a  light,  and  every 
wavelet  flashes  up  into  glory.    It  is  a  dreadful  thing 


T.18]  PARADOX  OF  LOVE'S  MEASURE   167 

to  think,  'For  ever,  Thou  art  God.'  It  is  a  solemn 
thing  to  think,  *  For  ever  I  am  to  be ' ;  but  it  is  life  to 
say :  '  O  Christ !  Thy  love  endureth  from  everlasting 
to  everlasting;  and  because  it  lives,  I  shall  live  also' — 
*0h!  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  He  is  good,  for 
His  mercy  endureth  for  ever.' 

There  is  another  measure  of  the  length  of  the  love  of 
Christ.  'Master!  How  often  shall  my  brother  sin 
against  me,  and  I  forgive  him? — I  say  not  unto  thee 
until  seven  times,  but  until  seventy  times  seven.'  So 
said  the  Christ,  multiplying  perfection  into  itself 
twice — two  sevens  and  a  ten — in  order  to  express  the 
idea  of  boundlessness.  And  the  law  that  He  laid  down 
for  His  servant  is  the  law  that  binds  Himself.  What 
is  the  length  of  the  love  of  Christ  ?  Here  is  one  mea- 
sure of  it — howsoever  long  drawn  out  my  sin  may  be, 
this  is  longer ;  and  the  white  line  of  His  love  runs  out 
into  infinity,  far  beyond  the  point  where  the  black  line 
of  my  sin  stops.  Anything  short  of  eternal  patience 
would  have  been  long  ago  exhausted  by  your  sins  and 
mine,  and  our  brethren's.  But  the  pitying  Christ,  the 
eternal  Lover  of  all  wandering  souls,  looks  down  from 
heaven  upon  every  one  of  us ;  goes  with  us  in  all  our 
wanderings,  bears  with  us  in  all  our  sins,  in  all  our 
transgressions  still  is  gracious.  His  pleadings  sound 
on,  like  some  stop  in  an  organ  continuously  persistent 
through  all  the  other  notes.  And  round  His  throne 
are  w^ritten  the  divine  words  which  have  been  spoken 
about  our  human  love  modelled  after  His :  '  Charity 
suffereth  long  and  is  kind  ;  is  not  easily  provoked,  is 
not  soon  angry,  beareth  all  things.'  The  length  of  the 
love  of  Christ  is  the  length  of  eternity,  and  out- 
measures  all  human  sin. 

III.  Then  again,  what  is  the  depth  of  that  love  ? 


168   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iii. 

Depth  and  height,  as  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  these 
remarks,  are  but  two  ways  of  expressing  the  same 
dimension.  For  the  one  we  begin  at  the  top  and  mea- 
sure down,  for  the  other  we  begin  at  the  bottom  and 
measure  up.  The  top  is  the  Throne ;  and  the  down- 
ward measure,  how  is  it  to  be  stated  ?  In  what  terms 
of  distance  are  we  to  express  it  ?  How  far  is  it  from 
the  Throne  of  the  Universe  to  the  manger  of  Beth- 
lehem, and  the  Cross  of  Calvary,  and  the  sepulchre  in 
the  garden?  That  is  the  depth  of  the  love  of  Christ. 
Howsoever  far  may  be  the  distance  from  that  loftiness 
of  co-equal  divinity  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  and 
radiant  with  glory,  to  the  lowliness  of  the  form  of  a 
servant,  and  the  sorrows,  limitations,  rejections,  pains 
and  death — that  is  the  measure  of  the  depth  of  Christ's 
love.  We  can  estimate  the  depth  of  the  love  of  Christ 
by  saying,  '  He  came  from  above,  He  tabernacled  with 
us,'  as  if  some  planet  were  to  burst  from  its  track  and 
plunge  downwards  in  amongst  the  mist  and  the 
narrowness  of  our  earthly  atmosphere. 

A  well-known  modern  scientist  has  hazarded  the 
speculation  that  the  origin  of  life  on  this  planet  has 
been  the  falling  upon  it  of  the  fragments  of  a  meteor, 
or  an  aerolite  from  some  other  system,  with  a  speck  of 
organic  life  upon  it,  from  which  all  has  developed. 
Whatever  may  be  the  case  in  regard  to  physical  life, 
that  is  absolutely  true  in  the  case  of  spiritual  life. 
It  all  originates  because  this  heaven-descended  Christ 
has  come  down  the  long  staircase  of  Incarnation,  and 
has  brought  with  Him  into  the  clouds  and  oppressions 
of  our  terrestrial  atmosphere  a  germ  of  life  which  He 
has  planted  in  the  heart  of  the  race,  there  to  spread 
for  ever.  That  Is  the  measure  of  the  depth  of  the  love 
of  Christ. 


▼.18]  PARADOX  OF  LOVE'S  MEASURE   169 

And  there  is  another  way  to  measure  it.  My  sins 
are  deep,  my  helpless  miseries  are  deep,  but  they  are 
shallow  as  compared  with  the  love  that  goes  down 
beneath  all  sin,  that  is  deeper  than  all  sorrow,  that  is 
deeper  than  all  necessity,  that  shrinks  from  no  de- 
gradation, that  turns  away  from  no  squalor,  that 
abhors  no  wickedness  so  as  to  avert  its  face  from  it. 
The  purest  passion  of  human  benevolence  cannot  but 
sometimes  be  aware  of  disgust  mingling  with  its  pity 
and  its  efforts,  but  Christ's  love  comes  down  to  the 
most  sunken.  However  far  in  the  abyss  of  degrada- 
tion any  human  soul  has  descended,  beneath  it  are  the 
everlasting  arms,  and  beneath  it  is  Christ's  love.  When 
a  coalpit  gets  blocked  up  by  some  explosion,  no  brave 
rescuing  party  will  venture  to  descend  into  the  lowest 
depths  of  the  poisonous  darkness  until  some  ventila- 
tion has  been  restored.  But  this  loving  Christ  goes 
down,  down,  down  into  the  thickest,  most  pestilential 
atmosphere,  reeking  with  sin  and  corruption,  and 
stretches  out  a  rescuing  hand  to  the  most  abject  and 
undermost  of  all  the  victims.  How  deep  is  the  love  of 
Christ!  The  deep  mines  of  sin  and  of  alienation  are 
all  undermined  and  countermined  by  His  love.  Sin  is 
an  abyss,  a  mystery,  how  deep  only  they  know  who 
have  fought  against  it ;  but 

•  O  love  1  thou  bottomless  abyss, 
My  sins  are  swallowed  up  in  thee.' 

'I  will  cast  all  their  sins  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.' 
The  depths  of  Christ's  love  go  down  beneath  all  human 
necessity,  sorrow,  suffering,  and  sin. 

IV.  And  lastly,  what  is  the  height  of  the  love  of 
Christ  ? 

We  found  that  the  way  to  measure  the  depth  was  to 


170   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iii. 

begin  at  the  Throne,  and  go  down  to  the  Cross,  and  to 
the  foul  abysses  of  evil.  The  way  to  measure  the  height 
is  to  begin  at  the  Cross  and  the  foul  abysses  of  evil,  and 
to  go  up  to  the  Throne.  That  is  to  say,  the  topmost 
thing  in  the  Universe,  the  shining  apex  and  pinnacle, 
glittering  away  up  there  in  the  radiant  unsettiug  light, 
is  the  love  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  Other  concep- 
tions of  that  divine  nature  spring  high  above  us  and 
tower  beyond  our  thoughts,  but  the  summit  of  them 
all,  the  very  toi^raost  as  it  is  the  very  bottommost, 
outside  of  everything,  and  therefore  high  above  every- 
thing, is  the  love  of  God  which  has  been  revealed  to 
us  all,  and  brought  close  to  us  sinful  men  in  the  man- 
hood and  passion  of  our  dear  Christ. 

And  that  love  which  thus  towers  above  us,  and 
gleams  like  the  shining  cross  on  the  top  of  some  lofty 
cathedral  spire,  does  not  flash  up  there  inaccessible, 
nor  lie  before  us  like  some  pathless  precipice,  up  which 
nothiag  that  has  not  wings  can  ever  hope  to  rise,  but 
the  height  of  the  love  of  Christ  is  an  hospitable  height, 
which  can  be  scaled  by  us.  Nay,  rather,  that  heaven 
of  love  which  is  'higher  than  our  thoughts,'  bends 
down,  as  by  a  kind  of  optical  delusion  the  physical 
heaven  seems  to  do  towards  each  of  us,  only  with  this 
blessed  difference,  that  in  the  natural  world  the  place 
where  heaven  touches  earth  is  always  the  furthest 
point  of  distance  from  us :  and  in  the  spiritual  world 
the  place  where  heaven  stoops  to  me  is  always  right 
over  my  head,  and  the  nearest  i)ossibIe  point  to  me. 
He  has  come  to  lift  us  to  Himself,  and  this  is  the 
height  of  His  love,  that  it  bears  us,  if  we  will,  up 
and  up  to  sit  upon  that  throne  where  He  Himself  is 
enthroned. 

So.  brethren,  Christ's  love  is  round  about  us  all,  as 


V.18]    THE  CLIMAX  OF  ALL  PRAYER    171 

some  sunny  tropical  sea  may  embosom  in  its  violet 
waves  a  multitude  of  luxuriant  and  happy  islets.  So 
all  of  us,  islanded  on  our  little  individual  lives,  lie  in 
that  great  ocean  of  love,  all  the  dimensions  of  which 
are  immeasurable,  and  which  stretches  above,  beneath, 
around,  shoreless,  tideless,  bottomless,  endless. 

But,  remember,  this  ocean  of  love  you  can  shut  out 
of  your  lives.  It  is  possible  to  plunge  a  jar  into  mid- 
Atlantic,  further  than  soundings  have  ever  descended, 
and  to  bring  it  up  on  deck  as  dry  inside  as  if  it  had 
been  lying  on  an  oven.  It  is  possible  for  men  and  women 
— and  I  have  them  listening  to  me  at  this  moment 
— to  live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in  that  sea  of 
love,  and  never  to  have  let  one  drop  of  its  richest  gifts 
into  their  hearts  or  their  lives.  Open  your  hearts  for 
Him  to  come  in,  by  humble  faith  in  His  great  sacrifice 
for  you.  For  if  Christ  dwell  in  your  heart  by  faith, 
then  and  only  then  will  experience  be  your  guide  ;  and 
you  will  be  able  to  comprehend  the  boundless  great- 
ness, the  endless  duration,  and  absolute  perfection,  and 
to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge. 


THE  CLIMAX  OF  ALL  PRAYER 

•That  ye  might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.'— Eph.  iiL  19. 

The  Apostle's  many-linked  prayer,  which  we  have 
been  considering  in  successive  sermons,  has  reached 
its  height.  It  soars  to  the  very  Throne  of  God.  There 
can  be  nothing  above  or  beyond  this  wonderful 
petition.  Rather,  it  might  seem  as  if  it  were  too  much 
to  ask,  and  as  if,  in  the  ecstasy  of  prayer,  Paul  had 
forgotten  the  limits  that  separate  the  creature  from 
the  Creator,  as  well  as  the  experience  of  sinful  and 


172   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iil 

imperfect  men,  and  had  sought  to  'wind  himself  too 
high  for  mortal  life  beneath  the  sky.'  And  yet  Paul's 
prayers  are  God's  promises ;  and  we  are  justified  in 
taking  these  rapturous  petitions  as  being  distinct 
declarations  of  God's  desire  and  purpose  for  each  of 
us ;  as  being  the  end  which  He  had  in  view  in  the 
unspeakable  gift  of  His  Son ;  and  as  being  the  certain 
outcome  of  His  gracious  working  on  all  believing 
hearts. 

It  seems  at  first  a  paradoxical  impossibility ;  looked 
at  more  deeply  and  carefully  it  becomes  a  possibility 
for  each  of  us,  and  therefore  a  duty ;  a  certainty  for 
all  the  redeemed  in  fullest  measure  hereafter;  and, 
alas !  a  rebuke  to  our  low  lives  and  feeble  expectations. 
Let  us  look,  then,  at  the  petition,  with  the  desire  of 
sounding,  as  we  may,  its  depths  and  realising  its 
preciousness. 

I.  First  of  all,  think  with  me  of  the  significance  of 
this  prayer. 

'The  fulness  of  God'  is  another  expression  for  the 
whole  sum  and  aggregate  of  all  the  energies,  powers, 
and  attributes  of  the  divine  nature,  the  total  Godhead 
in  its  plenitude  and  abundance. 

'God  is  love,'  we  say.  What  does  that  mean,  but 
that  God  desires  to  impart  His  whole  self  to  the 
creatures  whom  He  loves?  What  is  love  in  its  lofty 
and  purest  forms,  even  as  we  see  them  here  on  earth ; 
what  is  love  except  the  infinite  longing  to  bestow  one's 
self?  And  when  we  proclaim  that  which  is  the  summit 
and  climax  of  the  revelation  of  our  Father  in  the 
person  of  His  Son,  and  say  with  the  last  utterances  of 
Scripture  that '  God  is  love,'  we  do  in  other  words  pro- 
claim  that  the  very  nature  and  deepest  desire  and 
purpose  of  the  divine  heart  is  to  pour  itself  on  the 


▼.19]    THE  CLIMAX  OF  ALL  PRAYER    173 

emptiness  and  need  of  His  lowly  creatures  in  floods 
that  keep  back  nothing.  Lofty,  wonderful,  incompre- 
hensible to  the  mere  understanding  as  this  thought 
may  be,  clearly  it  is  the  inmost  meaning  of  all  that 
Scripture  tells  us  about  God  as  being  the  *  portion  of 
His  people,'  and  about  us,  as  being  by  Christ  and  in 
Christ '  heirs  of  God,'  and  possessors  of  Himself. 

We  have,  then,  as  the  promise  that  gleams  from 
these  great  words,  this  wonderful  prospect,  that  the 
divine  love,  truth,  holiness,  joy,  in  all  their  rich 
plenitude  of  all-sufficient  abundance,  may  be  showered 
upon  us.  The  whole  Godhead  is  our  possession ;  for 
the  fulness  of  God  is  no  far-off  remote  treasure  that 
lies  beyond  human  grasp  and  outside  of  human  ex- 
perience. Do  not  we  believe  that,  to  use  the  words  of 
this  Apostle  in  another  letter,  '  it  pleased  the  Father 
that  in  Him  should  all  the  fulness  dwell '  ?  Do  we  not 
believe  that,  to  use  the  words  of  the  same  epistle,  '  In 
Christ  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily'? 
Is  not  that  abundance  of  the  resources  of  the  whole 
Deity  insphered  and  incarnated  in  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord,  that  it  may  be  near  us,  and  that  we  may  put  out 
our  hand  and  touch  it  ?  This  may  be  a  paradox  for 
the  understanding,  full  of  metaphysical  puzzles  and 
cobwebs,  but  for  the  heart  that  knows  Christ,  most  true 
and  precious.  God  is  gathered  into  Jesus  Christ,  and 
all  the  fulness  of  God,  whatever  that  may  mean,  is 
embodied  in  the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  that  from  Him  it 
may  be  communicated  to  every  soul  that  will. 

For,  to  quote  other  words  of  another  of  the  New 
Testament  teachers,  •  Of  His  fulness  have  all  we  re- 
ceived, and  grace  for  grace,'  and  to  quote  words  in 
another  part  of  the  same  epistle,  we  may  *  all  come  to 
a  perfect  man,  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 


174    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [cH.ra. 

fulness  of  Christ.'  High  above  us,  then,  and  inacces- 
sible though  that  awful  thought,  '  the  fulness  of  God,' 
may  seem,  as  the  zenith  of  the  unscaleable  heavens 
seems  to  us  poor  creatures  creeping  here  upon  the  flat 
earth,  it  comes  near,  near,  near,  ever  nearer,  and  at 
last  tabernacles  among  us,  when  we  think  that  in  Him 
all  the  fulness  dwells,  and  it  comes  nearer  yet  and 
enters  into  our  hearts  when  we  think  that  'of  His 
fulness  have  we  all  received.' 

Then,  still  further,  observe  another  of  the  words  in 
this  petition  : — '  That  ye  may  be  filled.'  That  is  to  say, 
Paul's  prayer  and  God's  purpose  and  desire  concerning 
us  is,  that  our  whole  being  may  be  so  saturated  and 
charged  w^ith  an  indwelling  divinity  as  that  there 
shall  be  no  room  in  our  present  stature  and  capacity 
for  more,  and  no  sense  of  want  or  aching  emptiness. 

Ah,  brethren !  when  we  think  of  how  eagerly  we 
have  drunk  at  the  stinking  puddles  of  earth,  and  how 
after  every  draught  there  has  yet  been  left  a  thirst 
that  was  pain,  it  is  something  for  us  to  hear  Him 
say: — *The  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him 
a  well  of  water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life,' — and 
'he  that  drinketh  of  this  water  shall  never  thirst.' 
Our  empty  hearts,  with  their  experiences  of  the  in- 
sufficiency and  the  vanity  of  all  earthly  satisfaction, 
stand  there  like  the  water-pots  at  the  rustic  marriage, 
and  the  Master  says,  'Fill  them  to  the  brim.'  And 
then,  by  His  touch,  the  water  of  our  poor  savourless, 
earthly  enjoyments  is  transmuted  and  elevated  into 
the  new  wine  of  His  Kingdom.  We  may  be  filled, 
satisfied  with  the  fulness  of  God. 

There  is  another  point  as  to  the  significance  of  this 
prayer,  on  which  I  must  briefly  touch.  As  our  Revised 
Version  will  tell  you,  the  literal  rendering  of  my  text 


V.  19]    THE  CLIMAX  OF  ALL  PRAYER    175 

is,  'filled  wn^o'  (not  exactly  with)  'all  the  fulness  of 
God';  which  suggests  the  idea  not  of  a  completed  work 
but  of  a  process,  and  of  a  growing  process,  as  if  more 
and  more  of  that  great  fulness  might  pass  into  a  man. 
Suppose  a  number  of  vessels,  according  to  the  old 
illustration  about  degrees  of  glory  in  heaven  ;  they  are 
each  full,  but  the  quantity  that  one  contains  is  much 
less  than  that  which  the  other  may  hold.  Add  to  the 
illustration  that  the  vessels  can  grow,  and  that  filling 
makes  them  grow;  as  a  shrunken  bladder  when  you 
pass  gas  into  it  will  expand  and  round  itself  out,  and 
all  the  creases  will  be  smoothed  away.  Such  is  the 
Apostle's  idea  here,  that  a  process  of  filling  goes  on 
which  may  satisfy  the  then  desires,  because  it  fills  us 
up  to  the  then  capacities  of  our  spirits  ;  but  in  the 
very  process  of  so  filling  and  satisfying  makes  those 
spirits  capable  of  containing  larger  measures  of  His 
fulness,  which  therefore  flow  into  it.  Such,  as  I  take 
it,  in  rude  and  faint  outline,  is  the  significance  of  this 
great  prayer. 

II.  Now  turn,  in  the  next  place,  to  consider  briefly 
the  possibility  of  the  accomplishments  of  this  petition. 

As  I  said,  it  sounds  as  if  it  were  too  much  to  desire. 
Certainly  no  wish  can  go  beyond  this  wish.  The  ques- 
tion is,  can  a  sane  and  humble  wish  go  as  far  as  this ; 
and  can  a  man  pray  such  a  prayer  with  any  real  belief 
that  he  will  get  it  answered  here  and  now?    I  say  yes ! 

There  are  two  difficulties  that  at  once  start  up. 

People  will  say,  does  such  a  prayer  as  this  upon  man's 
lips  not  forget  the  limits  that  bound  the  creature's 
capacity  ?    Can  the  finite  contain  the  Infinite  ? 

Well,  that  is  a  verbal  puzzle,  and  I  answer,  yes  !  The 
finite  can  contain  the  Infinite,  if  you  are  talking  about 
two  hearts  that  love,  one  of  them  God's  and  one  of  them 


170  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  hi. 

mine.  We  have  got  to  keep  very  clear  and  distinct 
before  our  minds  the  broad,  firm  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  creature  and  the  Creator,  or  else  we  gret 
into  a  pantheistic  region  where  both  creature  and 
Creator  expire.  But  there  is  a  Christian  as  well  as  an 
atheistic  pantheism,  and  as  long  as  we  retain  clearly 
in  our  minds  the  consciousness  of  the  personal  dis- 
tinction between  God  and  His  child,  so  as  that  the 
child  can  turn  round  and  say,  'I  love  Thee,'  and  God  can 
look  down  and  say,  *  I  bless  thee  ' ;  then  all  identifica- 
tion and  mutual  indwelling  and  impartation  from  Him 
of  Himself  are  possible,  and  are  held  forth  as  the  aim 
and  end  of  Christian  life. 

Of  course  in  a  mere  abstract  and  philosophical  sense 
the  Infinite  cannot  be  contained  by  the  finite  ;  and 
attributes  which  express  infinity,  like  omnipresence 
and  omniscience  and  omnipotence  and  go  on,  indicate 
things  in  God  that  we  can  know  but  little  about,  and 
that  cannot  be  communicated.  But  those  are  not  the 
divinest  things  in  God.  *  God  is  love.'  Do  you  believe 
that  that  saying  unveils  the  deepest  things  in  Him  ? 
God  is  light,  '  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all.'  Do 
you  believe  that  His  light  and  His  love  are  nearer  the 
centre  than  these  attributes  of  power  and  infinitude  ? 
If  we  believe  that,  then  we  can  come  back  to  my  text 
and  say,  'The  love,  which  is  Thee,  can  come  into 
me;  the  light,  which  is  Thee,  can  pour  itself  into 
my  darkness ;  the  holiness,  which  is  Thee,  can  enter 
into  my  impurity.  The  heaven  of  heavens  cannot 
contain  Thee.  Thou  dwellest  in  the  humble  and  in  the 
contrite  heart.' 

So,  dear  brethren,  the  old  legends  about  mighty 
forms  that  contracted  their  stature  and  bowed  their 
divine  heads  to  enter  into  some  poor  man's  hut,  and 


V.  19]    THE  CLIMAX  OF  ALL  PRAYER     177 

sit  there,  are  simple  Christian  realities.  And  instead 
of  puzzling  ourselves  with  metaphysical  difficulties 
which  are  mere  shadows,  and  the  work  of  the  under- 
standing or  the  spawn  of  words,  let  us  listen  to  the 
Christ  when  He  says,  'We  will  come  unto  him  and 
make  our  abode  with  him,'  and  believe  that  it  was  no 
impossibility  which  fired  the  Apostle's  hope  when  he 
prayed,  and  in  praying  prophesied,  that  we  might  be 
filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God. 

Then  there  is  another  difficulty  that  rises  before  our 
minds ;  and  Christian  men  say,  '  How  is  it  possible,  in 
this  region  of  imperfection,  compassed  with  infirmity 
and  sin  as  we  are,  that  such  hopes  should  be  realised 
for  us  here?'  Well,  I  would  rather  answer  that  ques- 
tion by  retorting  and  saying :  '  How  is  it  possible  that 
such  a  prayer  should  have  come  from  inspired  lips 
unless  the  thing  that  Paul  was  asking  might  be?' 
Did  he  waste  his  breath  when  he  thus  prayed  ?  Are 
we  not  as  Christian  men  bound,  instead  of  measuring 
our  expectations  by  our  attainments,  to  try  to  stretch 
our  attainments  to  what  are  our  legitimate  expecta- 
tions, and  to  hear  in  these  words  the  answer  to  the 
faithless  and  unbelieving  doubt  whether  such  a  thing 
is  possible,  and  the  assurance  that  it  is  possible. 

An  impossibility  can  never  be  a  duty,  and  yet  we  are 
commanded  :  '  Be  ye  perfect,  as  your  Father  in  heaven 
is  perfect.*  An  impossibility  can  never  be  a  duty,  and 
yet  we  are  commanded  to  let  Christ  abide  in  our  hearts. 

Oh  I  if  we  believed  less  in  the  power  of  our  sin  it 
would  have  less  power  upon  us.  If  we  believed  more 
in  the  power  of  an  indwelling  Christ  He  would  have 
more  power  within  us.  If  we  said  to  ourselves,  '  It  is 
possible,'  we  should  make  it  possible.  The  impossibility 
arises  only  from  our  own  weakness,  from  our  own 

M 


178  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  hi. 

sinful  weakness ;  and  though  it  may  be  true,  and  is 
true,  that  none  of  us  •will  live  without  sin  as  long  as 
we  abide  here,  it  is  also  true  that  each  moment  of 
interruption  of  our  communion  with  Christ  and  there- 
fore each  moment  of  interruption  of  that  being  '  filled 
with  the  fulness  of  God,'  might  have  been  avoided.  We 
know  about  every  such  time  that  we  could  have  helped 
it  if  we  had  liked,  and  it  is  no  use  bringing  any  general 
principles  about  sin  cleaving  to  men  in  order  to  break 
the  force  of  that  conviction.  But  if  that  conviction  be 
a  real  one,  and  if  whenever  a  Christian  man  loses  the 
consciousness  of  God  in  his  heart,  making  him  blessed, 
he  is  obliged  to  say :  '  It  was  my  own  fault  and  Thou 
wouldst  have  stayed  if  I  had  chosen,'  then  there  fol- 
lows from  this,  that  it  is  possible,  notwithstanding 
all  the  imperfection  and  sin  of  earth,  that  we  may  be 
'  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.' 

So,  dear  brethren,  take  you  this  prayer  as  the 
standard  of  your  expectations;  and  oh !  take  it  as  we 
must  all  take  it,  as  the  sharpest  of  rebukes  to  our 
actual  attainments  in  holiness  and  in  likeness  to  our 
Master.  Set  by  the  side  of  these  wondrous  and  solemn 
words — 'filled  with  the  fulness  of  God,'  the  facts  of  the 
lives  of  the  average  professing  Christians  of  this 
generation,  and  of  this  congregation  ;  their  emptiness, 
their  ignorance  of  the  divine  indwelling,  their  want  of 
anything  in  their  experience  that  corresponds  in  the 
least  degree  to  such  words  as  these.  Judge  whether  a 
man  is  not  more  likely  to  be  bowed  down  in  whole- 
some sense  of  his  own  sinfulness  and  unworthiness,  if 
he  has  before  him  such  an  ideal  as  this  of  my  text, 
than  if  it,  too,  has  faded  out  of  his  life.  I  believe,  for 
my  part,  that  one  great  cause  of  the  worldliness  and 
the  sinfulness  and  mechanical  formalities  that  are  eat- 


T.  19]    THE  CLIMAX  OF  ALL  PRAYER     179 

ing  the  life  out  of  the  Christianity  of  this  generation 
is  the  fact  of  the  Church  having  largely  lost  any  real 
belief  in  the  possibility  that  Christian  men  may  possess 
the  fulness  of  God  as  their  present  experience.  And 
so,  when  they  do  not  find  it  in  themselves  they  say : 
'  Oh  I  it  is  all  right ;  it  is  the  necessary  result  of  our 
imperfect  fleshly  condition.'  Xo  I  It  is  all  wrong  ;  and 
His  purpose  is  that  we  should  possess  Him  in  the 
fulness  of  His  gladdening  and  hallowing  power,  at 
every  moment  in  our  happy  lives. 

HI.  One  word  to  close  with,  as  to  the  means  by 
which  this  prayer  may  be  fulfilled. 

Remember,  it  comes  as  the  last  link  in  a  chain.  I 
shall  have  wasted  my  breath  for  a  month,  as  far  as 
you  are  concerned,  if  you  do  not  feel  that  the  preceding 
links  are  needful  before  this  can  be  attained. 

But  I  only  touch  upon  the  nearest  of  them  and 
remind  you  that  it  must  be  Christ  dwelling  in  our 
hearts,  that  fills  them  with  the  fulness  of  God.  Where 
He  comes  God  comes.  And  where  does  He  come  ? 
He  comes  where  faith  opens  the  door  for  Him.  If  you 
will  trust  Jesus  Christ,  if  you  will  distrust  yourselves, 
if  you  will  turn  your  thoughts  and  your  hearts  to  Him, 
if  you  will  let  Him  come  into  your  souls,  and  not  shut 
Him  out  because  your  souls  are  so  full  that  there  is 
no  room  for  Him  there,  then  when  He  comes  He  will 
not  come  empty-handed,  but  will  bring  the  full  God- 
head with  Him. 

There  must  be  the  emptying  of  self,  if  there  is  to  be 
the  filling  with  God.  And  the  emptying  of  self  is 
realised  in  that  fairh  which  forsakes  self-confidence, 
self-righteousness,  self-dppendence,  self-control,  self- 
pleasing,  and  yields  itself  wholly  to  the  dear  Lord. 

There  is  another  condition  that  is  required,  and  that 


180   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [oh.  in. 

is  the  previous  link  in  this  braided  chain.  The  conscious 
experience  of  the  love  which  is  in  Christ  will  bring  to 
us  *  the  fulness  of  God.'  Love  is  power ;  love  is  God ; 
and  when  we  live  in  the  sense  and  experience  of  God's 
love  to  us  then  we  have  the  power  and  we  have  the 
God.  It  is  as  in  some  of  these  petrifying  streams,  the 
water  is  charged  with  particles  which  it  deposits  upon 
everything  that  is  laid  in  its  course.  So,  if  we  plunge 
our  hearts  into  that  fountain  of  the  love  of  Christ,  as 
it  flows  it  will  clothe  us  with  all  the  divine  energies 
which  are  held  in  solution  in  the  divinest  thing  in 
God — His  own  love.  Plunged  into  the  love  we  are 
filled  with  the  fulness. 

Then  keep  near  your  Master.  It  all  comes  to  that. 
Meditate  upon  Him  ;  do  not  let  days  pass,  as  they  do 
pass,  without  a  thought  being  turned  to  Him.  Do  not 
go  about  your  daily  work  without  a  remembrance  of 
Him.  Keep  yourselves  in  Christ.  Seek  to  experience 
His  love,  that  love  which  passeth  knowledge,  and  is 
only  known  by  them  who  possess  it.  And  then,  as 
the  old  painters  with  deep  truth  used  to  paint  the 
Apostle  of  Love  with  a  face  like  his  Master,  living 
near  Christ  and  looking  upon  Him  you  will  receive  of 
His  fulness,  and  '  we  all,  with  open  face,  beholding 
the  glory,  shall  be  changed  into  the  glory.' 


MEASURELESS  POWER  AND  ENDLESS  GLORY 

'  Now  unto  Him  that  is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that  we  ask 
or  think,  according  to  the  power  that  worketh  iu  ub,  21.  Unto  Him  b«  glory  in 
the  Cbnroh  by  Christ  Jesus  thronghoiit  all  ages,  world  without  end.  Amen.' 
— Bph.  ilL  »«,  81. 

One  purpose  and  blessing  of  faithful    prayer  is   to 
enlarge  the  desires  which  it  expresses,  and  to  make 


vs.  20, 21]    MEASURELESS  POWER  181 

us  think  more  loftily  of  the  grace  to  which  we  appeal. 
So  the  Apostle,  in  the  wonderful  series  of  supplications 
which  precedes  the  text,  has  found  his  thought  of  what 
he  may  hope  for  his  brethren  at  Ephesus  grow  greater 
with  every  clause.  His  prayer  rises  like  some  song- 
bird, in  ever-widening  sweeps,  each  higher  in  the  blue, 
and  nearer  the  throne ;  and  at  each  a  sweeter,  fuller 
note. 

'  Strengthened  with  might  by  His  Spirit ' ;  '  that 
Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith ' ;  '  that  ye 
may  be  able  to  know  the  love  of  Christ';  'that  ye 
might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.'  Here  he 
touches  the  very  throne.  Beyond  that  nothing  can 
be  conceived.  But  though  that  sublime  petition  may 
be  the  end  of  thought,  it  is  not  the  end  of  faith. 
Though  God  can  give  us  nothing  more  than  it  is,  He 
can  give  us  more  than  we  think  it  to  be,  and  more 
than  we  ask,  when  we  ask  this.  Therefore  the  grand 
doxology  of  our  text  crowns  and  surpasses  even  this 
great  prayer.  The  higher  true  prayer  climbs,  the 
wider  is  its  view ;  and  the  wider  is  its  view,  the  more 
conscious  is  it  that  the  horizon  of  its  vision  is  far 
within  the  borders  of  the  goodly  land.  And  as  we 
gaze  into  what  we  can  discern  of  the  fulness  of  God, 
prayer  will  melt  into  thanksgiving  and  the  doxology 
for  the  swift  answer  will  follow  close  upon  the  last 
words  of  supplication.  So  is  it  here;  so  it  may  be 
always. 

The  form  of  our  text  then  marks  the  confidence  of 
Paul's  prayer.  The  exuberant  fervour  of  his  faith,  as 
well  as  his  natural  impetuosity  and  ardour,  comes 
out  in  the  heaped-up  words  expressive  of  immensity 
and  duration.  He  is  like  some  archer  watching,  with 
parted  lips,  the  flight  of  his  arrow  to  the  mark.    He 


182    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iil 

is  gazing  on  God  confident  that  he  has  not  asked  in 
vain.  Let  us  look  with  him,  that  we,  too,  may  be 
heartened  to  expect  great  things  of  God.  Notice 
then — 

I.  The  measure  of  the  power  to  which  we  trust. 

This  epistle  is  remarkable  for  its  frequent  references 
to  the  divine  rule,  or  standard,  or  measure,  in  accord- 
ance with  which  the  great  facts  of  redemption  take 
place.  The  'things  on  the  earth' — the  historical  pro- 
cesses by  which  salvation  is  brought  to  men  and 
works  in  men — are  ever  traced  up  to  the  'things  in 
heaven ' ;  the  divine  counsels  from  which  they  have 
come  forth.  That  phrase,  '  according  to,'  is  perpetually 
occurring  in  this  connection  in  the  epistle.  It  is 
applied  mainly  in  two  directions.  It  serves  sometimes 
to  bring  into  view  the  ground,  or  reason,  of  the 
redemptive  facts,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  expression 
that  these  take  place  'according  to  His  good  pleasure 
which  He  hath  purposed  in  Himself.'  It  serves  some- 
times to  bring  into  view^  the  measure  by  which  the 
working  of  these  redemptive  facts  is  determined;  as 
in  our  text,  and  in  many  other  places. 

Now  there  are  three  main  forms  under  which  this 
standard,  or  measure,  of  the  Redeeming  Power  is  set 
forth  in  this  epistle,  and  it  will  help  us  to  grasp  the 
greatness  of  the  Apostle's  thought  if  we  consider 
these. 

Take,  then,  first,  that  clause  in  the  earlier  portion  of 
the  preceding  prayer, '  that  He  would  grant  you  accord- 
ing to  the  riches  of  His  glory.'  The  measure,  then,  of 
the  gift  that  we  may  hope  to  receive  is  the  measure  of 
God's  own  fulness.  The  '  riches  of  His  glory '  can  be 
nothing  less  than  the  whole  uncounted  abundance  of 
that  majestic  and  far-shining  Nature,  as  it  pours  itself 


vs.  20,  21]    MEASURELESS  POWER  183 

forth  in  the  dazzling  perfectness  of  its  own  Self-mani- 
festation. And  nothing  less  than  this  great  treasure 
is  to  be  the  limit  and  standard  of  His  gift  to  us.  We 
are  the  sons  of  the  King,  and  the  allowance  which  He 
makes  us  even  before  we  come  to  our  inheritance  is 
proportionate  to  our  Father's  wealth.  The  same 
stupendous  thought  is  given  us  in  that  prayer,  heavy 
with  the  blessed  weight  of  unspeakable  gifts,  'that  ye 
might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.'  This,  then, 
is  the  measure  of  the  grace  that  we  may  possess.  This 
limitless  limit  alone  bounds  the  possibilities  for  every 
man,  the  certainties  for  every  Christian. 

The  effect  must  be  proportioned  to  the  cause.  And 
what  effect  will  be  adequate  as  the  outcome  of  such  a 
cause  as 'the  riches  of  His  glory'?  Nothing  short  of 
absolute  perfectness,  the  full  transmutation  of  our 
dark,  cold  being  into  the  reflected  image  of  His  own 
burning  brightness,  the  ceaseless  replenishing,  of  our 
own  spirits  with  all  graces  and  gladnesses  akin  to 
His,  the  eternal  growth  of  the  soul  upward  and  God- 
ward.  Perfection  is  the  sign  manual  of  God  in  all  His 
works,  just  as  imperfection  and  the  falling  below  our 
thought  and  wish  is  our  '  token  in  every  epistle '  and 
deed  of  ours.  Take  the  finest  needle,  and  put  it  below 
a  microscope,  and  it  will  be  all  ragged  and  irregular, 
the  fine,  tapering  lines  will  be  broken  by  many  a  bulge 
and  bend,  and  the  point  blunt  and  clumsy.  Put  the 
blade  of  grass  to  the  same  test,  and  see  how  regular  its 
outline,  how  delicate  and  true  the  spear-head  of  its 
point.  God's  work  is  perfect,  man's  is  clumsy  and 
incomplete.  God  does  not  leave  off  till  He  has  finished. 
When  He  rests,  it  is  because,  looking  on  His  work,  He 
sees  it  all  '  very  good.'  His  Sabbath  is  the  Sabbath  of 
an   achieved    purpose,    of    a    fulfilled    counsel.     The 


184.   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [cauL 

palaces  which  we  build  are  ever  like  that  one  in  the 
story,  where  one  window  remains  dark  and  unjewelled, 
while  the  rest  blaze  in  beauty.  But  when  God  builds, 
none  can  say, '  He  was  not  able  to  finish.'  In  His  great 
palace  He  makes  her  *  windows  of  agates '  and  all  her 
'  borders  of  pleasant  stones.' 

So  we  have  a  right  to  enlarge  our  desires  and  stretch 
our  confidence  of  what  we  may  possess  and  become  to 
this,  His  boundless  bound — '  The  riches  of  glory.' 

But  another  form  in  which  the  standard,  or  measure, 
is  stated  in  this  letter  is  :  '  The  working  of  His  mighty 
power,  which  He  wrought  in  Christ,  when  He  raised 
Him  from  the  dead '  (i.  19,  20) ;  or,  as  it  is  put  with  a 
modification,  '  grace  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
gift  of  Christ*  (iv.  7).  That  is  to  say,  we  have  not  only 
the  whole  riches  of  the  divine  glory  as  the  measure  to 
which  we  may  lift  our  hopes,  but  lest  that  celestial 
brightness  should  seem  too  high  above  us,  and  too  far 
from  us,  we  have  Christ  in  His  human-divine  manifes- 
tation, and  especially  in  the  great  fact  of  the  Resur- 
rection, set  before  us,  that  by  Him  we  may  learn  what 
God  wills  we  should  become.  The  former  phase  of 
the  standard  may  sound  abstract,  cloudy,  hard  to 
connect  with  any  definite  anticipations ;  and  so  this 
form  of  it  is  concrete,  historical,  and  gives  human 
features  to  the  fair  ideal.  His  Resurrection  is  the 
high-water  mark  of  the  divine  power,  and  to  the  same 
level  it  will  rise  again  in  regard  to  every  Christian. 
The  Lord,  in  the  glory  of  His  risen  life,  and  in  the 
riches  of  the  gifts  which  He  received  when  He  ascended 
up  on  high,  is  the  pattern  for  us,  and  the  power  which 
fulfils  its  own  pattern.  In  Him  we  see  what  man  may 
become,  and  what  His  followers  must  become.  The 
limits  of  that  power  will  not  be  reached  until  every 


vs.  21. 22]      MEASURELESS  POWER  185 

Christian  soul  is  perfectly  assimilated  to  that  likeness, 
and  bears  all  its  beauty  in  its  face,  nor  till  every 
Christian  soul  is  raised  to  participation  in  Christ's 
dignity  and  sits  on  His  throne.  Then,  and  not  till 
then,  shall  the  purpose  of  God  be  fulfilled  and  the 
gift  which  is  measured  by  the  riches  of  the  Father's 
glory,  and  the  fulness  of  the  Son's  grace,  be  possessed 
or  conceived  in  its  measureless  measure. 

But  there  is  a  third  form  in  which  this  same 
standard  is  represented.  That  is  the  form  which  is 
found  in  our  text,  and  in  other  places  of  the  einstle: 
'  According  to  the  poTver  that  workcth  in  us.' 

What  power  is  that  but  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  dwelling  in  us  ?  And  thus  we  have  the  measure, 
or  standard,  set  forth  in  terms  respectively  applying 
to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  the 
first,  the  riches  of  His  glory;  for  the  second,  His 
Resurrection  and  Ascension ;  for  the  third,  His  energy 
working  in  Christian  souls.  The  first  carries  us  up 
into  the  mysteries  of  God,  where  the  air  is  almost 
too  subtle  for  our  gross  lungs ;  the  second  draws 
nearer  to  earth  and  points  us  to  an  historical  fact 
that  happened  in  this  everyday  world;  the  third 
comes  still  nearer  to  us,  and  bids  us  look  within,  and 
see  whether  what  we  are  conscious  of  there,  if  we 
interpret  it  by  the  light  of  these  otlier  measures,  will 
not  yield  results  as  great  as  theirs,  and  open  before 
us  the  same  fair  prospect  of  perfect  holiness  and 
conformity  to  the  divine  nature. 

There  is  already  a  Power  at  work  within  us,  if  we 
be  Christians,  of  whose  workings  we  may  be  aware, 
and  from  them  forecast  the  measure  of  the  gifts 
which  it  can  bestow  upon  us.  We  may  estimate  what 
will  be  by  what  we  know  has  been,  and  by  what  we 


186   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iil 

feel  is.  That  is  to  say,  in  other  words,  the  effects 
already  produced,  and  the  experiences  we  have  already 
had,  carry  in  them  the  pledge  of  completeness. 

I  suppose  that  if  the  mediaeval  dream  had  ever 
come  true,  and  an  alchemist  had  ever  turned  a  grain 
of  lead  into  gold,  he  could  have  turned  all  the  lead 
in  the  world  in  time,  and  with  crucibles  and  furnaces 
enough.  The  first  step  is  all  the  difficulty,  and  if  you 
and  I  have  been  changed  from  enemies  into  sons, 
and  had  one  spark  of  love  to  God  kindled  in  our 
hearts,  that  is  a  mightier  change  than  any  that 
remains  to  be  effected  in  order  to  make  us  perfect. 
One  grain  has  been  changed,  the  whole  mass  will  be  so 
in  due  time. 

The  present  operations  of  that  power  carry  in  them 
the  pledge  of  their  own  completion.  The  strange 
mingling  of  good  and  evil  in  our  present  nature,  our 
aspirations  so  crossed  and  contradicted,  our  resolution 
so  broken  and  falsified,  the  gleams  of  light,  and  the 
eclipses  that  follow — all  these  in  their  opposition  to 
each  other,  are  plainly  transitory,  and  the  workings  of 
that  Power  within  us,  though  they  be  often  overborne, 
are  as  plainly  the  stronger  in  their  nature,  and  meant 
to  conquer  and  to  endure.  Like  some  half-hewn  block, 
such  as  travellers  find  in  long  abandoned  quarries, 
whence  Egyptian  temples,  that  wore  destined  never  to 
be  completed,  were  built,  our  spirits  are  but  partly 
'  polished  after  the  similitude  of  a  palace,'  while  much 
remains  in  the  rough.  The  builders  of  these  temples 
have  mouldered  away  and  their  unfinished  handiwork 
will  lie  as  it  was  when  the  last  chisel  touched  it 
centuries  ago,  till  the  crack  of  doom;  but  stones  for 
God's  temple  will  be  wrought  to  completeness  and  set 
in  their  places,    The  whole  threefold  divine  cause  of 


V8.20,21]    MEASURELESS  POWER  187 

our  salvation  supplies  the  measure,  and  lays  the  foun- 
dation for  our  hopes,  in  the  glory  of  the  Father,  the 
grace  of  the  Son,  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Let 
us  lift  up  our  cry  :  '  Perfect  that  which  concerneth  me, 
forsake  not  the  works  of  thine  own  hands,'  and  we 
shall  have  for  answer  the  ancient  word,  fresh  as  when 
it  sounded  long  ago  from  among  the  stars  to  the 
sleeper  at  the  ladder's  foot,  '  I  will  not  leave  thee,  until 
I  have  done  that  which  I  have  spoken  to  thee  of.' 

II.  Notice  the  relation  of  the  divine  working  to  our 
thoughts  and  desires. 

The  Apostle  in  his  fervid  way  strains  language  to 
express  how  far  the  possiV)ility  of  the  divine  working 
extends.  He  is  able,  not  only  to  do  all  things,  but 
'beyond  all  things' — a  vehement  way  of  putting  the 
boundless  reach  of  that  gracious  power.  And  what 
he  means  by  this  'beyond  all  things'  is  more  fully 
expressed  in  the  next  words,  in  which  he  labours  by 
accumulating  synonyms  to  convey  his  sense  of  the 
transcendent  energy  which  waits  to  bless  :  'exceeding 
abundantly  above  what  we  ask.'  And  as,  alas!  our 
desires  are  but  shrunken  and  narrow  beside  our 
thoughts,  he  sweeps  a  wider  orbit  when  he  adds  '  above 
what  we  think'  He  has  been  asking  wonderful  things, 
and  yet  even  his  farthest-reaching  petitions  fall  far 
on  this  side  of  the  greatness  of  God's  power.  One 
might  think  that  even  it  could  go  no  further  than 
filling  us  'with  all  the  fulness  of  God.'  Nor  can  it; 
but  it  may  far  transcend  our  conceptions  of  what  that 
is,  and  astonish  us  by  its  surpassing  our  thoughts, 
no  less  than  it  shames  us  by  exceeding  our  prayers. 

Of  course,  all  this  is  true,  and  is  meant  to  apply, 
only  about  the  inward  gifts  of  God's  grace.  I  need 
not  remind  you  that,  in  the  outer  world  of  Providence 


188  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESI ANS  [oh.  hl 

and  earthly  gifts,  prayers  and  wishes  often  surpass 
the  answers ;  that  there  a  deeper  wisdom  often  con- 
tradicts our  thoughts  and  a  truer  kindness  refuses 
our  petitions,  and  that  so  the  rapturous  words  of  our 
text  are  only  true  in  a  very  modified  and  partial  sense 
about  God's  working  for  us  in  the  world.  It  is  His 
work  in  us  concerning  which  they  are  absolutely 
true. 

Of  course  we  know  that  in  all  regions  of  His  work- 
ing He  is  able  to  surpass  our  poor  human  conceptions, 
and  that,  properly  speaking,  the  most  familiar,  and, 
as  we  insolently  call  them,  'smallest'  of  His  works 
holds  in  it  a  mystery — were  it  none  other  than  the 
mystery  of  Being — against  which  Thought  has  been 
breaking  its  teeth  ever  since  men  began  to  think 
at  all. 

But  as  regards  the  working  of  God  on  our  spiritual 
lives,  this  passing  beyond  the  bounds  of  thought  and 
desire  is  but  the  necessary  result  of  the  fact  already 
dealt  with,  that  the  only  measure  of  the  power  is  God 
Himself,  in  that  Threefold  Being.  That  being  so,  no 
plummet  of  our  making  can  reach  to  the  bottom  of 
the  abyss;  no  strong-winged  thought  can  fly  to  the 
outermost  bound  of  the  encircling  heaven.  Widely 
as  we  stretch  our  reverent  conceptions,  there  is  ever 
something  beyond.  After  we  have  resolved  many  a 
dim  nebula  in  the  starry  sky,  and  found  it  all  ablaze 
with  suns  and  worlds,  there  will  still  hang,  faint 
and  far  before  us,  hazy  magnificences  which  we  have 
not  apprehended.  Confidently  and  boldly  as  we  may 
offer  our  prayers,  and  largely  as  we  may  expect,  the 
answer  is  ever  more  than  the  petition.  For  indeed, 
in  every  act  of  His  quickening  grace,  in  every  God- 
given    increase  of  our  knowledge   of  God,   in  every 


vs.  20,  21]     MEASURELESS  POWER  189 

bestowment  of  His  fulness,  there  is  always  more  be- 
stowed than  we  receive,  more  than  we  know  even 
while  we  possess  it.  Like  some  gift  given  in  the  dark, 
its  true  preciousness  is  not  discerned  when  it  is  first 
received.  The  gleam  of  the  gold  does  not  strike  our 
eye  all  at  once.  There  is  ever  an  unknown  margin  felt 
by  us  to  be  over  after  our  capacity  of  receiving  is 
exhausted.  'And  they  took  up  of  the  fragments  that 
remained,  twelve  baskets  full.' 

So,  then,  let  us  remember  that  while  our  thoughts 
and  prayers  can  never  reach  to  the  full  perception,  or 
reception  either,  of  the  gift,  the  exuberant  amplitude 
with  which  it  reaches  far  beyond  both  is  meant  to 
draw  both  after  it.  And  let  us  not  forget  either  that, 
while  the  grace  which  we  receive  has  no  limit  or 
measure  but  the  fulness  of  God,  the  working  limit, 
which  determines  what  we  receive  of  the  grace,  is 
these  very  thoughts  and  wishes  which  it  surpasses. 
We  may  have  as  much  of  God  as  we  can  hold,  as  much 
as  we  wish.  All  Niagara  may  roar  past  a  man's  door, 
but  only  as  much  as  he  diverts  through  his  own  sluice 
will  drive  his  mill,  or  quench  his  thirst.  God's  grace  is 
like  the  figures  in  the  Eastern  tales,  that  will  creep 
into  a  narrow  room  no  bigger  than  a  nutshell,  or  will 
tower  heaven  high.  Our  spirits  are  like  the  magic 
tent  whose  walls  expanded  or  contracted  at  the  owner's 
wish — we  may  enlarge  them  to  enclose  far  more  of  the 
grace  than  we  have  ever  possessed.  We  are  not 
straitened  in  God,  but  in  ourselves.  He  is  '  able  to  do 
exceeding  abundantly  above  what  we  ask  or  think.' 
Therefore  let  us  stretch  desires  and  thoughts  to  their 
utmost,  remembering  that,  while  they  can  never  reach 
the  measure  of  His  grace  in  itself,  they  make  the 
practical  measure  of  our  possession  of  it.    *  According 


190   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iii. 

to  thy  faith '  is  the  real  measure  of  the  gift  received, 
even  though  'according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory'  be 
the  measure  of  the  gift  bestowed.    Note,  again, 

III.  The  glory  that  springs  from  the  divine  work. 

'The  glory  of  God' is  the  lustre  of  His  own  perfect 
character,  the  bright  sum  total  of  all  the  blended 
brilliances  that  compose  His  name.  When  that  light 
is  welcomed  and  adored  by  men,  they  are  said  to  '  give 
glory  to  God,'  and  this  doxology  is  at  once  a  prophecy 
that  the  working  of  God's  power  on  His  redeemed 
children  will  issue  in  setting  forth  the  radiance  of  His 
Name  yet  more,  and  a  prayer  that  it  may.  So  we  have 
here  the  great  thought  expressed  in  many  places  of 
Scripture,  that  the  highest  exhibition  of  the  divine 
character  for  the  reverence  and  love — of  the  whole 
universe,  shall  we  say  ? — lies  in  His  work  on  Christian 
souls,  and  the  effect  produced  thereby  on  them.  God 
takes  His  stand,  so  to  speak,  on  this  great  fact  in  His 
dealings,  and  will  have  His  creatures  estimate  Him 
by  it.  Ho  reckons  it  His  highest  praise  that  He  has 
redeemed  men,  and  by  His  dwelling  in  them  fills  them 
with  His  own  fulness.  And  this  chiefest  praise  and 
brightest  glory  accrues  to  Him  '  in  the  Church  in 
Christ  Jesus.'  The  weakening  of  the  latter  word  into 
'6?/ Christ  Jesus,'  as  in  the  English  version,  is  to  be 
regretted,  as  substituting  another  thought.  Scriptural 
no  doubt  and  precious,  for  the  precise  shade  of  mean- 
ing in  the  Apostle's  mind  here.  As  has  been  well  said, 
'  the  first  words  denote  the  outward  province ;  the 
second,  the  inward  and  spiritual  sphere  in  which  God 
was  to  be  praised.'  His  glory  is  to  shine  in  the  Church, 
the  theatre  of  His  power,  the  standing  demonstration 
of  the  might  of  redeeming  love.  By  this  He  will  be 
judged,  and  this  He  will  point  to  if  any  ask  what  is 


V8.  20,  21]    MEASURELESS  POWER  191 

His  divinest  work,  which  bears  the  clearest  imprint  of 
His  divinest  self.  His  glory  is  to  be  set  forth  by  men 
on  condition  that  they  are  'in  Christ,'  living  and 
moving  in  Him,  in  that  mysterious  but  most  real 
union  without  wliich  no  fruit  grows  on  the  dead 
branches,  nor  any  music  of  praise  breaks  from  the 
dead  lips. 

So,  then,  think  of  that  wonder  that  God  sets  His 
glory  in  His  dealings  with  us.  Amid  all  the  majesty 
of  His  works  and  all  the  blaze  of  His  creation,  this  is 
what  He  presents  as  the  highest  specimen  of  His  power 
— the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  company  of  poor 
men,  wearied  and  conscious  of  many  evils,  who  follow 
afar  off  the  footsteps  of  their  Lord.  Plow  dusty 
and  toil-worn  the  little  group  of  Christians  that 
landed  at  Puteoli  must  have  looked  as  they  toiled 
along  the  Appian  Way  and  entered  Rome  !  How  con- 
temptuously emperor  and  philosopher  and  priest  and 
patrician  would  have  curled  their  lips,  if  they  had 
been  told  that  in  that  little  knot  of  Jewish  prisoners 
lay  a  power  before  which  theirs  would  cower  and 
finally  fade!  Even  so  is  it  still.  Among  all  the 
splendours  of  this  great  universe,  and  the  mere 
obtrusive  tawdrinesses  of  earth,  men  look  upon  us 
Christians  as  poor  enough ;  and  yet  it  is  to  His  re- 
deemed children  that  God  has  entrusted  His  praise, 
and  in  their  hands  that  He  has  lodged  the  sacred 
deposit  of  His  own  glory. 

Think  loftily  of  that  office  and  honour,  lowly  of 
yourselves  who  have  it  laid  upon  you  as  a  crown.  His 
honour  is  in  our  hands.  We  are  the  '  secretaries  of 
His  praise.'  This  is  the  highest  function  that  any 
creature  can  discharge.  The  Rabbis  have  a  beautiful 
bit    of  teaching    buried   among  their  rubbish   about 


192  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  m. 

angels.  They  say  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  angels — 
the  angels  of  service  and  the  angels  of  praise,  of 
which  two  orders  the  latter  is  the  higher,  and  that 
no  angel  in  it  praises  God  twice,  but  having  once  lifted 
up  his  voice  in  the  psalm  of  heaven,  then  perishes  and 
ceases  to  be.  He  has  perfected  his  being,  he  has 
reached  the  height  of  his  greatness,  he  has  done  what 
he  was  made  for,  let  him  fade  away.  The  garb  of 
legend  is  mean  enough,  but  the  thought  it  embodies  is 
that  ever  true  and  solemn  one,  without  which  life  is 
nought — '  Man's  chief  end  is  to  glorify  God.' 

And  we  can  only  fulfil  that  high  purpose  in  the 
measure  of  our  union  with  Christ.  *  In  Him' abiding, 
we  manifest  God's  glory,  for  in  Him  abiding  we  receive 
God's  grace.  So  long  as  we  are  joined  to  Him,  we 
partake  of  His  life,  and  our  lives  become  music  and 
praise.  The  electric  current  flows  from  Him  through 
all  souls  that  are  'in  Him,'  and  they  glow  with  fair 
colours  which  they  owe  to  their  contact  with  Jesus. 
Interrupt  the  communication,  and  all  is  darkness.  So, 
brethren,  let  us  seek  to  abide  in  Him,  severed  from 
whom  we  are  nothing.  Then  shall  we  fulfil  the 
purpose  of  His  love,  who  '  hath  shined  in  our  hearts,' 
that  we  might  give  to  others  '  the  light  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.' 
Notice,  lastly, 

IV.  The  eternity  of  the  work  and  of  the  praise. 

As  in  the  former  clauses  the  idea  of  the  trans- 
cendent greatness  of  the  power  of  God  was  expressed 
by  accumulated  synonyms,  so  here  the  kindred  thought 
of  its  eternity,  and  consequently  of  the  ceaseless 
duration  of  the  resulting  glory,  is  sought  to  be  set 
forth  by  a  similar  aggregation.  The  language  creaks 
and  labours,  as  it  were,  under  the  weight  of  the  great 


V8.20.21]      MEASURELESS  POWER  193 

conception.  Literally  rendered,  the  words  are — 'to  all 
generations  of  the  age  of  the  ages' — a  remarkable 
fusing  together  of  two  expressions  for  unbounded 
duration,  which  are  scarcely  congruous.  We  can 
understand  '  to  all  generations '  as  expressive  of  dura- 
tion as  long  as  birth  and  death  ..all  last.  We  can 
understand  'the  age  of  the  ages'  as  pointing  to  that 
endless  epoch  whose  moments  are  '  ages ' ;  but  the 
blending  of  the  two  is  but  an  unconscious  acknow- 
ledgment that  the  speech  of  earth,  saturated,  as  it  is, 
with  the  colouring  of  time,  breaks  down  in  the 
attempt  to  express  the  thought  of  eternity.  Un- 
doubtedly that  solemn  conception  is  the  one  intended 
by  this  strange  phrase. 

The  work  is  to  go  on  for  ever  and  ever,  and  with  it 
the  praise.  As  the  ages  which  are  the  beats  of  the 
pendulum  of  eternity  come  and  go,  more  and  more  of 
God's  power  will  flow  out  to  us,  and  more  and  more  of 
God's  glory  will  be  manifested  in  us.  It  must  be  so ; 
for  God's  gift  is  infinite,  and  man's  capacity  of  reception 
is  indefinitely  capable  of  increase.  Therefore  eternity 
will  be  needful  in  order  that  redeemed  souls  may 
absorb  all  of  God  which  He  can  give  or  they  can  take. 
The  process  has  no  limits,  for  there  is  no  bound  to  be 
set  to  the  possible  approaches  of  the  human  spirit  to 
the  divine,  and  none  to  the  exuberant  abundance  of 
the  beauty  and  glory  which  God  will  give  to  His  child. 
Therefore  we  shall  live  for  ever:  and  for  ever  show 
forth  His  praise  and  blaze  out  like  the  sun  with  the 
irradiation  of  His  glory.  We  cannot  die  till  we  have 
exhausted  God.  Till  we  comprehend  all  His  nature  in 
our  thoughts,  and  reflect  all  His  beauty  in  our 
character ;  till  we  have  attained  all  the  bliss  that  we 
can  think,  and  received  all  the  good  that  we  can  ask ; 

N 


194   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

till  Hope  has  nothing  before  her  to  reach  towards, 
and  God  is  left  behind  :  we  'shall  not  die,  but  live,  and 
declare  the  works  of  the  Lord.' 

Let  His  grace  work  on  yon,  and  yield  yourselves  to 
Him,  that  His  fulness  may  fill  your  emptiness.  So  on 
earth  we  shall  be  delivered  from  hopes  which  mock 
and  wishes  that  are  never  fulfilled.  So  in  heaven, 
after  '  ages  of  ages '  of  growing  glory,  we  shall  have  to 
say,  as  each  new  wave  of  the  shoreless,  sunlit  sea 
bears  us  onward,  *It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we 
shall  be.' 


THE  CALLING  AND  THE  KINGDOM 

•Ibeseech  you,  that  ye  walk  worthy  of  the  Tocatlon  wherewith  ye  are  called.'— 

Eph.  iv.  1. 
'They  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white ;  for  they  are  worthy.'— Rev.  ilL  4. 

The  estimate  formed  of  a  centurion  by  the  elders  of 
the  Jews  was,  'He  is  worthy  for  whom  Thou  shouldst 
do  this,'  and  in  contrast  therewith  the  estimate  formed 
by  himself  was,  '  I  am  not  worthy  that  Thou  shouldst 
come  under  my  roof.'  From  these  two  statements  we 
deduce  the  thought  that  merit  has  no  place  in  the 
Christian's  salvation,  but  all  is  to  be  traced  to  un- 
deserved, gracious  love.  But  that  principle,  true  and 
all-important  as  it  is,  like  every  other  great  truth, 
may  be  exaggerated,  and  may  be  so  isolated  as  to 
become  untrue  and  a  source  of  much  evil.  And  so 
I  desire  to  turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  shield,  and  to 
emphasise  the  place  that  worthiness  has  in  the  Christian 
life,  and  its  personal  results  both  here  and  hereafter. 
To  say  that  character  has  nothing  to  do  with  blessed- 
ness is  untrue,  both  to  conscience  and  to  the  Christian 
revelation ;  and  however  we  trace  all  things  to  grace, 


v.l]  CALLING  AND  KINGDOM  195 

we  must  also  remember  that  we  get  what  we  have 
fitted  ourselves  for. 

Now,  my  two  texts  bring  out  two  aspects  which  have 
to  be  taken  in  conjunction.  The  one  of  them  speaks 
about  the  present  life,  and  lays  it  as  an  imperative 
obligation  on  all  Christian  people  to  be  woithy  of 
their  Christianity,  and  the  other  carries  us  into  the 
future  and  shows  us  that  there  it  is  they  who  are 
'worthy'  who  attain  to  the  Kingdom.  So  I  think 
I  shall  best  bring  out  what  I  desire  to  emphasise  if 
I  just  take  these  two  points — the  Christian  calling 
and  the  life  that  is  worthy  of  it,  and  the  Christian 
heaven  and  the  life  that  is  worthy  of  it. 

I.  The  Christian  calling  and  the  life  that  is  worthy 
of  it. 

*  I  beseech  you  that  ye  walk  worthy  of  the  vocation 
wherewith  ye  are  called.'  Now,  that  thought  recurs 
in  other  places  in  the  Apostle's  writings,  somewhat 
modified  in  expression.  For  instance,  in  one  passage 
he  speaks  of  *  walking  worthily  of  the  God  who  has 
called  us  to  His  kingdom  and  glory,'  and  in  another 
of  the  Christian  man's  duty  to  '  walk  worthily  of  the 
Lord  unto  all  pleasing,'  There  is  a  certain  vocation 
to  which  a  Christian  man  is  bound  to  make  his  life 
correspond,  and  his  conduct  should  be  in  some  measure 
worthy  of  the  ideal  that  is  set  before  it.  Now,  we 
shall  best  understand  what  is  involved  in  such  worthi- 
ness if  we  make  clear  to  ourselves  what  the  Apostle 
means  by  this  'calling'  to  which  he  appeals  as  con- 
taining in  itself  a  standard  to  which  our  lives  are  to 
be  conformed. 

SvipiDose  we  try  to  put  away  the  technical  word 
*  calling,'  and  instead  of  '  calling '  say  '  summons,'  which 
is  nearer  the  idea,  because  it  conveys  the  notions  more 


196    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [en.  iv. 

fully  of  the  urgency  of  the  voice,  and  of  the  authority 
of  the  voice,  which  speaks  to  us.  And  what  is  that 
summons?  How  do  we  hear  it?  One  of  the  other 
Apostles  speaks  of  God  as  calling  us  *  by  His  own  glory 
and  virtue,'  that  is  to  say,  wherever  God  reveals  Him- 
self in  any  fashion,  and  by  any  medium,  to  a  man,  the 
man  fails  to  understand  the  deepest  meaning  of  the 
revelation  unless  his  purged  ear  hears  in  it  the  great 
voice  saying,  '  Come  up  hither.'  For  all  God's  self- 
manifestation,  in  the  creatures  around  us,  in  the  deep 
voice  of  our  own  souls,  in  the  mysteries  of  our  own 
personal  lives,  and  in  the  slow  evolution  of  His  purpose 
through  the  history  of  the  world,  all  these  revelations 
of  God  bear  in  them  the  summons  to  us  that  hear  and 
see  them  to  draw  near  to  Him,  and  to  mould  ourselves 
into  His  likeness.  And  thus,  just  as  the  sun  by  the 
effluence  of  its  beams  gathers  all  the  ministering 
planets,  as  it  were,  round  its  feet,  and  draws  them  to 
itself,  so  God,  raying  Himself  out  into  the  waste,  fills 
the  waste  with  magnetic  influences  which  are  meant 
to  draw  men  to  nobleness,  goodness,  God-pleasingness, 
and  God-likeness. 

But  in  another  place  in  this  Apostle's  writings  we 
read  of  '  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.'  Yes, 
there,  as  focussed  into  one  strong  voice,  all  the  sum- 
monses are  concentrated  and  gathered.  For  in  Jesus 
Christ  we  see  the  possibilities  of  humanity  realised, 
and  we  have  the  pattern  of  what  we  ought  to  be,  and 
are  called  thereby  to  be.  And  in  Christ  we  get  the 
great  motives  which  make  this  summons,  as  it  comes 
mended  from  His  lips,  no  longer  the  mere  harsh  voice 
of  an  authoritative  legislator,  but  the  gentle  invitation, 
'  Come  unto  Me,  .  .  .  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls.'    The  summons  is  honeyed,  sweetened,  and  made 


V.  1]  CALLING  AND  KINGDOM  197 

infinitely  mightier  when  we  hear  it  from  His  gracious 
lips.  It  is  the  blessed  peculiarity  of  the  Christian 
ideal,  that  the  manifestation  of  the  ideal  carries  with 
it  the  power  to  realise  it.  And  just  as  the  increasing 
strength  of  the  spring  sunshine  summons  the  buds 
from  out  of  their  folds,  and  the  snowdrops  hear  the 
call  and  force  themselves  through  the  frozen  soil,  so 
when  Christ  summons  He  inclines  the  ears  that  hear, 
and  enables  the  men  that  own  them  to  obey  the 
summons,  and  to  be  what  they  are  commanded.  And 
thus  we  have  'the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.' 

Now,  if  that  is  the  call,  if  the  life  of  Christ  is  that  to 
which  we  are  summoned,  and  the  death  of  Christ  is 
that  by  which  we  are  inclined  to  obey  the  summons, 
and  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is  that  by  which  we  are  enabled 
to  do  so,  what  sort  of  a  life  will  be  worthy  of  these? 
"Well,  the  context  supplies  part  of  the  answer.  '  I 
beseech  you  that  ye  walk  worthy  of  the  vocation  .  .  . 
with  all  meekness  and  lowliness,  with  long-suffering, 
forbearing  one  another  in  love.'  That  is  one  side  of 
the  vocation,  and  the  life  that  is  worthy  of  it  ^vill  be 
a  life  emancipated  from  the  meanness  of  selfishness, 
and  delivered  from  the  tumidities  of  pride  and  arro- 
gance, and  changed  into  the  sweetness  of  gentleness 
and  the  royalties  of  love. 

And  then,  on  the  other  side,  in  one  of  the  other 
texts  where  the  same  general  set  of  ideas  is  in- 
volved, we  get  a  yet  more  wondrous  exhibition  of 
the  life  which  the  Apostle  considered  to  be  worthy. 
I  simply  signalise  its  points  of  detail  without  ventur- 
ing to  dwell  upon  them.  *  Unto  all  pleasing' ;  the  first 
characteristic  of  life  that  is  '  worthy  of  our  calling,' 
and  to  which,  therefore,  every  one  of  us  Christian 
people  is  imperatively  bound,  is  that  it  shall,  in  all 


198    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

its  parts,  please  God,  and  that  is  a  large  demand. 
Then  follow  details:  'Fruitful  in  every  good  work' — a 
many-sided  fruitfuluess,  an  encyclopfediacal  beneficent 
activity,  covering  all  the  ground  of  possible  excellence; 
and  that  is  not  all;  'increasing  in  the  knowledge  of 
God,' — a  life  of  progressive  acquaintance  with  Him ; 
and  that  is  not  all : — '  strengthened  with  all  might  unto 
all  patience  and  long-suffering ' ;  nor  is  that  all,  for  the 
crown  of  the  whole  is  '  giving  thanks  unto  the  Father.' 
So,  then,  '  ye  see  your  calling,  brethren.'  A  life  that  is 
'worthy  of  the  vocation  wherewith  ye  are  called'  is  a 
life  that  conforms  to  the  divine  will,  that  is  '  fruitful 
in  all  good,'  that  is  progressive  in  its  acquaintance 
with  God,  that  is  strengthened  for  all  patience  and 
long-suffering,  and  that  in  everything  is  thankful  to 
Him.  That  is  what  we  are  summoned  to  be,  and  unless 
we  are  in  some  measure  obeying  the  summons,  and 
bringing  out  such  a  life  in  our  conduct,  then,  notwith- 
standing all  that  we  have  to  say  about  unmerited 
mercy,  and  free  grace,  and  undeserved  love,  and 
salvation  being  not  by  works  but  by  faith,  we  have 
no  right  to  claim  the  mercy  to  which  we  say  we  trust. 
Now,  this  necessity  of  a  worthy  life  is  perfectly 
harmonious  with  the  great  truth  that,  after  all,  every 
man  owes  all  to  the  undeserved  mercy  of  God.  The 
more  nearly  we  come  to  realise  the  purpose  of  our 
calling,  the  more  'worthy'  of  it  we  are,  the  deeper 
will  be  our  consciousness  of  our  unworthiness.  The 
more  we  approximate  to  the  ideal,  and  come  closer  up 
to  it,  and  so  see  its  features  the  better,  the  more  we 
shall  feel  how  unlike  we  are  to  it.  The  law  for  Christian 
progress  is  that  the  sense  of  uiiv»'orthiness  increases  in 
the  precise  degree  in  which  the  worthiness  increases. 
The  same  man  that  said,  'Of  whom  (sinners)  I  am 


V.  1]  CALLING  AND  KINGDOM  199 

chief/  said  to  the  same  reader,  '  I  have  kept  the  faith, 
henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteous- 
ness.' And  so  the  two  things  are  not  contradictory 
but  complementary.  On  the  one  side  'worthy'  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  outflow  of  Christ's  love  to  us ; 
on  the  other  side  we  are  to  'walk  worthy  of  the  vocation 
wherewith  we  are  called.' 

II.  And  now,  let  us  turn  to  the  other  thought,  the 
Christian  heaven  and  the  life  that  is  worthy  of  it. 

Some  of  you,  I  have  no  doubt,  would  think  that  that 
was  a  tremendous  heresy  if  there  were  not  Scriptural 
words  to  buttress  it.  Let  us  see  what  it  means.  My 
text  out  of  the  Revelation  says,  *  They  shall  walk  with 
Me  in  white,  for  they  are  worthy.'  And  the  same 
voice  that  spake  these,  to  some  of  us,  astounding, 
words,  said,  when  He  was  here  on  earth,  'They  which 
shall  be  counted  worthy  to  attain  to  the  life  of  the 
resurrection  from  the  dead,'  etc.  The  text  brings  out 
very  clearly  the  continuity  and  congruity  between  the 
life  on  earth  and  the  life  in  heaven.  Who  is  it  of 
whom  it  is  said  that  'they  are  worthy'  to  'walk  in 
white '  ?  It  is  the  *  few  names  even  in  Sardis  which  have 
not  defiled  their  garments.'  You  see  the  connection ; 
clean  robes  here  and  shining  robes  hereafter ;  the  two 
go  together,  and  you  cannot  separate  them.  And  no 
belief  that  salvation,  in  its  incipient  germ  here,  and 
salvation  in  its  fulness  hereafter,  are  the  results  'not 
of  works  of  righteousness  which  we  have  done,  but 
of  His  mercy,'  is  to  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  that 
other  truth  that  they  who  are  worthy  attain  to  the 
Kingdom. 

I  must  not  be  diverted  from  my  main  purpose,  tempt- 
ing as  the  theme  would  be,  to  say  more  than  just  a 
sentence  about  what  is  included  in  that  great  promise, 


200    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [en.  iv. 

'  They  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white.'  And  if  I  do  touch 
upon  it  at  all,  it  is  only  in  order  to  bring  out  more 
clearly  that  the  very  nature  of  the  heavenly  reward 
demands  this  worthiness  which  the  text  lays  down  as 
the  condition  of  possessing  it.  'They  shall  walk' — 
activity  on  an  external  world.  That  opens  a  great 
door,  but  perhaps  we  had  better  be  contented  just 
with  looking  in.  '  They  shall  walk ' — progress ;  '  with 
me' — union  with  Jesus  Christ;  'in  white' — resplendent 
purity  of  character.  Now  take  these  four  things — 
activity  on  an  outward  universe,  progress,  union  with 
Christ,  resplendent  purity  of  character,  and  you  have 
almost  all  that  we  know  of  the  future;  the  rest  is 
partly  doubtful  and  is  mostly  symbolical  or  negative, 
and  in  any  case  subordinate.  Never  mind  about 
'physical  theories  of  another  life ';  never  mind  about 
all  the  questions — to  some  of  us  how  torturing  they 
sometimes  are ! — concerning  that  future  life.  The  more 
we  keep  ourselves  within  the  broad  limits  of  these 
promises  that  are  intertwined  and  folded  up  together 
in  that  one  saying,  '  They  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white,' 
the  better,  I  think,  for  the  sanity  and  the  spirituality 
of  our  conception  of  a  future  life. 

That  being  understood,  the  next  thing  clearly  follows, 
that  only  those  who  in  the  sense  of  the  word  as  it  is 
used  here,  are  '  worthy,'  can  enter  upon  the  possession 
of  such  a  heaven.  From  the  nature  of  the  gift  it  is 
clear  that  there  must  be  a  moral  and  religious  con- 
gruity  between  the  gift  and  the  recipient,  or,  to 
put  it  into  plainer  words,  you  cannot  get  heaven 
unless  your  nature  is  capable  of  receiving  these  great 
gifts  which  constitute  heaven.  People  talk  about  the 
future  state  as  being  'a  state  of  retribution.'  Well! 
that  is  not  altogether  a  satisfactory  form  of  expression, 


T.l]  CALLING  AND  KINGDOM  201 

for  retribution  may  convey  the  idea,  such  as  is  pre- 
sented in  earthly  rewards  and  punishments,  of  there 
being  no  natural  correspondence  between  the  crime 
and  its  punishment,  or  the  virtue  and  its  reward.  A 
bit  of  bronze  shaped  into  the  form  of  a  cross  may  be 
the  retribution  '  For  Valour,'  and  a  prison  cell  may  be 
the  retribution  by  legal  appointment  for  a  certain 
crime.  But  that  is  not  the  w^ay  that  God  deals  out 
rewards  and  punishments  in  the  life  which  is  to  come. 
It  is  not  a  case  of  retribution,  meaning  thereby  the 
arbitrary  bestowment  of  a  certain  fixed  gift  in  response 
to  certain  virtues,  but  it  is  a  case  of  outcome,  and  the 
old  metaphor  of  sowing  and  reaping  is  the  true  one. 
We  sow  here  and  we  reap  yonder.  We  pass  into  that 
future,  '  bringing  our  sheaves  with  us,'  and  we  have  to 
grind  the  corn  and  make  bread  of  it,  and  we  have  to 
eat  the  work  of  our  own  hands.  They  drink  as  they 
have  brewed.  'Their  works  do  follow  them,' or  they 
go  before  them  and  'receive  them  into  everlasting 
habitations.'  Outcome,  the  necessary  result,  and  not 
a  mere  arbitrary  retribution,  is  the  relation  which 
heaven  bears  to  earth. 

That  is  plain,  too,  from  our  own  nature.  We  carry 
ourselves  with  us  wherever  we  go.  The  persistence  of 
character,  the  continuity  of  personal  being,  the  con- 
tinuity of  memory,  the  unohliterahle — if  I  may  coin 
a  word — results  upon  ourselves  of  our  actions,  all  these 
things  make  it  certain  that  w^hat  looks  to  us  a  cleft, 
deep  and  broad,  between  the  present  life  and  the  next, 
is  to  those  that  have  passed  it,  and  see  it  from  the 
other  side,  but  a  little  crack  in  the  soil  scarcely  observ- 
able, and  that  we  carry  on  into  another  world  the 
selves  that  we  have  made  here.  Whatever  death  does 
— and  it  does  a  great  deal  that  wo  do  not  know  of — it 


202   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

does  not  alter,  it  only  brings  out,  and,  as  I  suppose, 
intensifies,  the  main  drift  and  set  of  a  character.  And 
so  they  who  '  have  not  defiled  their  garments  shall 
walk  with  Me  in  white,  for  they  are  worthy.' 

Ah,  brethren!  how  solemn  that  makes  life;  the 
fleeting  moment  carries  Eternity  in  its  bosom.  It 
passes,  and  the  works  pass,  but  nothing  human  ever 
dies,  and  we  bear  with  us  the  net  results  of  all  the 
yesterdays  into  that  eternal  to-day.  You  write  upon 
a  thin  film  of  paper  and  there  is  a  black  leaf  below  it. 
12es,  and  below  the  black  leaf  there  is  another  sheet, 
and  all  that  you  write  on  the  top  one  goes  through  the 
dark  interposed  page,  and  is  recorded  on  the  third,  and 
one  day  that  will  be  taken  out  of  the  book,  and  you 
will  have  to  read  it  and  say,  'What  I  have  written 
I  have  written.' 

So,  dear  friends,  whilst  we  begin  with  that  un- 
merited love,  and  that  same  unmerited  love  is  the 
sole  ground  on  which  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  are  by  the  Death  and  Resurrection  and  Ascen- 
sion of  Jesus  Christ  opened  to  believers,  their  place 
there  depends  not  only  on  faith  but  on  the  work 
which  is  the  fruit  of  faith.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  being  'saved  yet  so  as  by  fire,'  and  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  'having  an  entrance  ministered  abundantly 
unto  us ' ;  we  have  to  make  the  choice.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  the  sore  punishment  of  which  they  are 
thought  worthy  who  have  rejected  the  Son  of  God, 
and  counted  the  blood  of  the  Covenant  an  unholy 
thing;  and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  man  saying, 
'  I  am  not  worthy  that  Thou  shouldest  come  unto  me,' 
and  Christ  answering,  '  He  shall  walk  with  Me  in  white, 
for  he  is  worthy,'  and  we  have  to  make  that  choice 
also. 


•THE  THREEFOLD  UNITY* 

•  One  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism.'— Eph.  iv.  5. 

The  thought  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  is  very  promi- 
nent in  this  epistle.  It  is  difficult  for  us,  amidst  our 
present  divisions,  to  realise  how  strange  and  wonderful 
it  then  was  that  a  bond  should  have  been  found  which 
drew  together  men  of  all  nations,  ranks,  and  characters. 
Pharisee  and  philosopher,  high-born  women  and  slaves, 
Roman  patricians  and  gladiators,  Asiatic  Greeks  and 
Syrian  Jews  forgot  their  feuds  and  sat  together  as  one 
in  Christ.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Paul  in  this  letter 
dwells  so  long  and  earnestly  on  that  strange  fact.  He 
is  exhorting  here  to  a  unity  of  spirit  corresponding  to 
it,  and  he  names  a  seven-fold  oneness — one  body  and  one 
spirit,  one  hope,  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one 
God  and  Father  of  all.  The  outward  institution  of  the 
Church,  as  a  manifest  visible  fact,  comes  first  in  the 
catalogue.  One  Father  is  last,  and  between  these  there 
lie  the  mention  of  the  one  Spirit  and  the  one  Lord. 
The  '  body '  is  the  Church.  '  Spirit,  Lord,  God,'  are  the 
triune  divine  personality.  Hope  and  faith  are  human 
acts  by  which  men  are  joined  to  God ;  Baptism  is  the 
visible  symbol  of  their  incorporation  into  the  one 
body.  These  three  clauses  of  our  text  may  be  con- 
sidered as  substantially  including  all  the  members  of 
the  series.  We  deal  with  them  quite  simply  now,  and 
consider  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  stand  here. 

I.  The  one  Lord. 

The  deep  foundation  of  Christian  unity  is  laid  in 
the  divine  Christ.  Here,  as  generally  in  the  New 
Testament,  the  name  '  Lord '  designates  Christ  in  His 
authority  as  ruler  of  men  and  in  His  divinity  as  Incar- 

208 


204    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

nation  of  God.  It  would  not  be  going  too  far  to 
suggest  that  we  have  in  the  name,  standing  as  it  does, 
for  the  most  part,  in  majestic  simplicity,  a  reference 
to  the  Old  Testament  name  of  Jehovah,  which  in  the 
Greek  translation  familiar  to  Paul  is  generally  rendered 
by  this  same  word.  Nor  can  we  ignore  the  fact  that  in 
this  great  catalogue  of  the  Christian  unities  the  Lord 
stands  in  the  centre  of  the  three  personalities  named, 
and  is  regarded  as  being  at  once  the  source  of  the 
Spirit  and  the  manifestation  of  the  Father.  The  place 
which  this  name  occupies  in  relation  to  the  Faith  which 
is  next  named  suggests  that  the  living  personal  Christ  is 
the  true  uniting  principle  amongst  men.  The  one  body 
realises  its  oneness  in  its  common  relation  to  the  one 
Lord.  It  is  one,  not  because  of  identity  in  doctrine, 
not  because  of  any  of  the  bonds  which  hold  men 
together  in  human  associations,  precious  and  sacred 
as  many  of  these  are,  but  'we  being  many  are  one 
bread,  for  we  are  all  partakers  of  that  one  bread.'  The 
magnet  draws  all  the  particles  to  itself  and  holds 
them  in  a  mysterious  unity. 

IL  One  faith. 

The  former  clause  set  forth  in  one  great  name  all 
the  objective  elements  of  the  Church's  oneness;  this 
clause  sets  forth,  with  equally  all-comprehending  sim- 
plicity, the  subjective  element  which  makes  a  Christian. 
The  one  Lord,  in  the  fulness  of  His  nature  and  the  per- 
f ectness  of  His  work,  is  the  all-inclusive  object  of  faith. 
He,  in  His  own  living  person,  and  not  any  dogmas 
about  Him,  is  regarded  as  the  strong  support  round 
which  the  tendrils  of  faith  cling  and  twine  and  grow. 
True,  He  is  made  known  to  us  as  possessing  certain 
attributes  and  as  doing  certain  things  which,  when 
stated  in  words,  become  doctrines,  and  a  Christ  without 


V.5]        *THE  THREEFOLD  UNITY'  205 

these  will  never  be  the  object  of  faith.  The  antithesis 
which  is  so  often  drawn  between  Clirist's  person  and 
Christian  doctrines  is  by  no  means  sound,  though  the 
warning  not  to  substitute  the  latter  for  the  former  is 
only  too  necessary  at  all  times. 

The  subjective  act  which  lays  hold  of  Christ  is  faith, 
which  in  our  text  has  its  usual  meaning  of  saving 
trust,  and  is  entirely  misconceived  if  it  is  taken,  as  it 
sometimes  is,  to  mean  the  whole  body  of  beliefs  which 
make  up  the  Christian  creed.  That  which  unites  us  to 
Jesus  Christ  is  an  infinitely  deeper  thing  than  the 
acceptance  of  any  creed.  A  man  may  believe  thirty- 
nine  or  thirty-nine  hundred  articles  without  having  any 
real  or  vital  connection  with  the  one  Lord.  The  faith 
which  saves  is  the  outgoing  of  the  whole  self  towards 
Christ.  In  it  the  understanding,  the  emotions,  and  the 
will  are  all  in  action.  The  New  Testament /mi/i  is  abso- 
lutely identical  with  the  Old  Testament  trust,  and  the 
prophet  who  exhorted  Israel,  '  Trust  ye  in  the  Lord  for 
ever,  for  in  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  everlasting  strength,' 
was  preaching  the  very  same  message  as  the  Apostle 
who  cried,  '  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou 
shalt  be  saved.' 

That  'saving  faith'  is  the  same  in  all  Christians, 
however  different  they  may  be  in  condition  and  char- 
acter and  general  outlook  and  opinion  upon  many  points 
of  Christian  knowledge.  The  things  on  which  they 
differ  are  on  the  surface,  and  sometimes  by  reason  of 
their  divergencies  Christians  stand  like  frowning  cliffs 
that  look  threateningly  at  one  another  across  a  narrow 
gorge,  but  deep  below  ground  they  are  continuous  and 
the  rock  is  unbroken.  In  many  and  melancholy  ways 
'the  unity  of  faith  and  knowledge'  is  contradicted  in 
the  existing  organisations  of  the  Church,  and  we  are 


206    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  rr. 

tempted  to  postpone  its  coming  to  the  day  of  the  new 
Jerusalem  which  is  compact  together ;  but  the  clarion 
note  of  this  great  text  may  encourage  us  to  hope,  and 
to  labour  in  our  measure  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  hope, 
that  all,  who  by  one  faith  have  been  joined  to  the  one 
Lord,  may  yet  know  themselves  to  be  one  in  Him,  and 
present  to  the  world  the  fair  picture  of  one  body  ani- 
mated by  one  spirit. 

III.  One  baptism. 

Obviously  in  Paul's  mind  baptism  here  means,  not  the 
baptism  with  the  Spirit,  but  the  rite,  one  and  the  same 
for  all,  by  which  believers  in  Christ  enter  into  the 
fellowship  of  the  Church.  It  "was  then  a  perpetual  rite 
administered  as  a  matter  of  course  to  all  who  professed 
to  have  been  joined  to  the  one  Lord  by  their  one  faith. 
The  sequence  in  the  three  clauses  of  our  text  is 
perfectly  clear.  Baptism  is  the  expression  and  con- 
sequence of  the  faith  which  precedes  it.  Surely  there 
is  here  a  most  distinct  implication  that  it  is  a  declara- 
tion of  personal  faith.  Without  enlarging  on  the 
subject,  I  venture  to  think  that  the  order  of  the 
Apostle's  thought  negatives  other  conceptions  of 
Christian  baptism,  such  as,  that  it  is  a  communication 
of  Grace,  or  an  expression  of  the  feelings  and  desires 
of  parents,  or  a  declaration  of  some  truth  about  re- 
deemed humanity.  Paul's  order  is  Christ's  when  He 
said,  *  He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved.' 

It  is  very  remarkable  and  instructive  that  whilst 
thus  our  text  shows  that  baptism  was  a  matter  of 
course  and  universally  practised,  the  references  to  it 
in  the  epistles  are  so  few.  The  inference  is  not  that  it 
was  neglected,  but  that,  as  being  a  rite,  it  could  not  be 
as  important  as  were  Christian  truths  and  Christian 
character.     May  we,  in  a  word,  suggest  the  contrast 


V.5]       'THE  MEASURE  OF  GRACE'        207 

between  the  frequency  and  tone  of  the  Apostolic  refer- 
ences to  baptism  and  those  which  we  find  in  many- 
quarters  to-day  ? 

It  is  remarkable  that  here  the  Lord's  Supper  is  not 
mentioned,  and  all  the  more  so,  that  in  Paul's  letter  to 
the  Corinthians,  the  passage  which  we  have  already 
quoted  does  put  emphasis  upon  it  as  a  token  of 
Christian  unity.  The  explanation  of  the  omission  may 
be  found  in  the  fact  that,  in  these  early  days,  the 
Lord's  Supper  was  not  a  separate  rite,  but  was  com- 
bined with  ordinary  meals,  or  perhaps  more  probably 
in  the  consideration  that  baptism  was  what  the  Lord's 
Supper  was  not — an  initial  rite  which  incorporated 
the  possessors  of  one  faith  into  the  one  body. 


•THE  MEASURE  OF  GRACE* 

'But  ■nnto  each  one  of  iis  was  the  grace  given  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
gift  of  Christ.'— Eph.  iv.  7  (R.V.). 

The  Apostle  here  makes  a  swift  transition  from  the 
thought  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  to  the  variety  of 
gifts  to  the  individual.  'Each'  is  contrasted  with  'all.' 
The  Father  who  stands  in  so  blessed  and  gracious  a 
relationship  to  the  united  whole  also  sustains  an 
equally  gracious  and  blessed  relationship  to  each  indi- 
vidual in  that  whole.  It  is  because  each  receives  His 
individual  gift  that  God  works  in  all.  The  Christian 
community  is  the  perfection  of  individualism  and  of 
collectivism,  and  this  rich  variety  of  the  gifts  of  grace 
is  here  urged  as  a  reason  additional  to  the  unity  of  the 
one  body,  for  the  exhortation  to  the  endeavour  to 
maintain  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace. 
I.  Each  Christian  soul  receives  grace  through  Christ. 


208    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

The  more  accurate  rendering  of  the  Revised  Yersion 
reads  '  the  grace,'  and  the  definite  article  points  to  it  as 
a  definite  and  familiar  fact  in  the  Ephesian  believers 
to  v^hich  the  Apostle  could  point  with  the  certainty 
that  their  oven  consciousness  would  confirm  his  state- 
ment. The  wording  of  the  Greek  further  implies  that 
the  grace  was  given  at  a  definite  point  in  the  past, 
which  is  most  naturally  taken  to  have  been  the  moment 
in  which  each  believer  laid  hold  on  Jesus  by  faith.  It 
is  further  to  be  noted  that  the  content  of  the  gift  is 
the  grace  itself  and  not  the  graces  which  are  its  pro- 
duct and  manifestation  in  the  Christian  life.  And 
this  distinction,  which  is  in  accordance  with  Paul's 
habitual  teaching,  leads  us  to  the  conclusion,  that  the 
essential  character  of  the  grace  given  through  the  act  of 
our  individual  faith  is  that  of  a  new  vital  force,  flowing 
into  and  transforming  the  individual  life.  From  that 
unspeakable  gift  which  Paul  supposed  to  be  verifiable 
by  the  individual  experience  of  every  Christian,  there 
would  follow  the  graces  of  Christian  character  in  which 
would  be  included  the  deepening  and  purifying  of  all 
the  natural  capacities  of  the  individual  self,  and  the 
casting  out  from  thence  of  all  that  was  contrary  to  the 
transforming  power  of  the  new  life. 

Such  an  utterance  as  this,  so  quietly  and  confidently 
taking  for  granted  that  the  experience  of  every  be- 
liever verifies  it  in  his  own  case,  may  well  drive  us  all 
to  look  more  earnestly  into  our  own  hearts,  to  see 
whether  in  them  are  any  traces  of  a  similar  experience. 
If  it  be  true,  that  to  every  one  of  us  is  given  the  gr.ice, 
how  comes  it  that  so  many  of  us  dare  not  profess  to 
have  any  vivid  remembrance  of  possessing  it,  of  having 
possessed  it,  or  of  any  clear  consciousness  of  possessing 
it  now?    There  may  be  gifts  bestowed  upon  unconscious 


V.  7]       '  THE  MEASURE  OF  GRACE '        209 

receivers,  but  surely  this  is  not  one  of  these.  If  we  do 
not  know  that  we  have  it,  it  must  at  least  remain  very 
questionable  whether  we  do  have  it  at  all,  and  very 
certain  that  we  have  it  in  scant  and  shrivelled  fashion. 

The  universality  of  the  gift  was  a  startling  thing  in 
a  world  which,  as  far  as  cultivated  heathenism  was 
concerned,  might  rightly  be  called  aristocratic,  and  by 
the  side  of  a  religion  of  privilege  into  which  Judaism 
had  degenerated.  The  supercilious  sarcasm  in  the  lips 
of  Pharisees,  '  This  people  which  knoweth  not  the  law 
are  cursed,'  but  too  truly  expresses  the  gulf  between 
the  Rabbis  and  the  '  folk  of  the  earth,'  as  the  masses 
were  commonly  and  contemptuously  designated  by  the 
former.  Into  the  midst  of  a  society  in  which  such  dis- 
tinctions prevailed,  the  proclamation  that  the  greatest 
gift  was  bestowed  upon  all  must  have  come  with  revo- 
lutionary force,  and  been  hailed  as  emancipation. 
Peter  had  penetrated  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  and 
wondrous  novelty  of  that  universality,  when  on  Pente- 
cost he  poin'^ed  to  'that  which  had  been  spoken  by  the 
prophet  Joel '  as  fulfilled  on  that  day,  '  I  will  pour  forth 
of  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh  .  .  .  Yea,  and  on  my  servants 
and  handmaidens  .  .  .  will  I  pour  forth  of  my  Spirit.' 
The  rushing,  mighty  wind  of  that  day  soon  dropped. 
The  fiery  tongues  ceased  to  quiver  on  the  disciples' 
heads,  and  the  many  voices  that  spoke  were  silenced, 
but  the  gift  was  permanent,  and  is  poured  out  now  as 
it  was  then,  and  now,  as  then,  it  is  true  that  the  whole 
company  of  believers  receive  the  Spirit,  though  alas! 
by  their  own  faults  it  is  not  true  that  'they  are  all 
filed  with  the  Holy  Spirit.* 

Christ  is  the  giver.  He  has  '  power  over  the  Spirit  of 
Holiness,'  and  as  the  Evangelist  has  said  in  his  com- 
ment on  our  Lord's  great  words,  when  '  He  stood  and 

O 


210    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

cried,'  'If  any  man  thirst  let  him  come  unto  Me  and 
drink,'  'This  spake  He  of  the  Spirit  which  tl^^^y  that 
believed  on  Him  were  to  receive.'  We  cannot  pierce 
into  the  depth  of  the  mutual  relations  of  the  three 
divine  Persons  mentioned  in  the  context,  but  we  can 
discern  that  Christ  is  for  us  the  self -revealing  activity 
of  the  divine  nature,  the  right  arm  of  the  Father,  or, 
to  use  another  metaphor,  the  channel  through  which 
the  else  '  closed  sea '  of  God  flows  into  the  world  of 
creatures.  Through  that  channel  is  poured  into  believ- 
ing hearts  the  river  of  the  water  of  life,  which  pro- 
ceeds out  of  the  one  '  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb.' 
This  gift  of  the  Spirit  of  Holiness  to  all  believers  is  the 
deepest  and  truest  concejjtion  of  Christ's  gifts  to  His 
Church.  His  past  work  of  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the 
w^orld  was  finished,  as  with  a  parting  cry  He  proclaimed 
on  Calvary,  and  the  power  of  that  sacrifice  will  never 
be  exhausted,  but  the  taking  away  of  the  sins  of  the 
world  is  but  the  initial  stage  of  the  work  of  Christ,  and 
its  further  stages  are  carried  on  through  all  the  ages. 
He  '  worketh  hitherto,'  and  His  present  work,  in  so  far 
as  believers  are  concerned,  is  not  only  the  forthputting 
of  divine  energy  in  regard  to  outward  circumstances, 
but  the  imparting  to  them  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  be 
the  very  life  of  their  lives  and  the  Lord  of  their  spirits. 
Christian  people  are  but  too  apt  to  give  undue  promi- 
nence to  what  Christ  did  for  them  when  He  died,  and 
to  lose  sight,  in  the  overwhelming  lustre  of  His  un- 
speakable sacrifice,  of  what  He  is  doing  for  them  whilst 
He  lives.  It  would  tend  to  restore  the  proportions  of 
Christian  truth  and  to  touch  our  hearts  into  a  deeper 
and  more  continuous  love  to  Him,  if  we  more  habitu- 
ally thought  of  Him,  not  only  as  the  Christ  who  died, 
but  also  as  the  Christ  who  rather  is  risen  again,  who 


V.7]        'THE  MEASURE  OF  GRACE'        211 

is  even  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  who  also  maketh 
intercession  for  us. 

II.  The  gift  of  this  grace  is  in  itself  unlimited. 

Our  text  speaks  of  it  as  being  according  to  the 
measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ,  and  that  phrase  may 
either  mean  the  gift  which  Christ  receives  or  that 
which  He  gives.  Probably  the  latter  is  the  Apostle's 
meaning  here,  as  seems  to  be  indicated  by  the  follow- 
ing words  that  '  when  He  ascended  on  high,  He  gave 
gifts  unto  men,'  but  what  He  gives  is  what  He  possesses, 
and  the  Apostle  goes  on  to  point  out  that  the  ultimate 
issue  of  His  giving  to  the  Church  is  that  it  attains 
to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ. 

It  may  cast  some  light  on  this  point  if  we  note  the 
remarkable  variety  of  expressions  in  this  epistle  for 
the  norm  or  standard  or  limit  of  the  gift.  In  one  place 
the  Apostle  speaks  of  the  gift  bestowed  upon  believers 
as  being  according  to  the  riches  of  the  Father's  glory  ; 
then  it  has  no  limit  short  of  a  participation  in  the 
divine  fulness.  God's  glory  is  the  transcendent  lustre 
of  His  own  infinite  character  in  its  self -manifestation. 
The  Apostle  labours  to  flash  through  the  dim  medium 
of  words  the  glory  of  that  light  by  blending  incon- 
gruously, but  effectively,  the  other  metaphor  of  riches, 
and  the  two  together  suggest  a  wonderful,  though 
vague  thought  of  the  infinite  wealth  and  the  exhaust- 
less  brightness  which  we  call  Abba,  Father.  The  hum- 
blest child  may  lift  longing  and  confident  eyes  and 
believe  that  he  has  received  in  very  deed,  through  his 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  a  gift  which  will  increase  in 
riches  and  in  light  until  it  makes  him  perfect  as  his 
Father  in  heaven  was  perfect.  It  was  an  old  faith, 
based  upon  insight  far  inferior  to  ours,  which  pro- 
claimed with  triumph  over  the  frowns  of  death,  'I  shall 


212    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

be  satisfied  when  I  awake  with  Thy  likeness.'  Would 
that  those  ^rho  have  so  much  more  for  faith  to  build 
on,  built  as  nobly  as  did  these ! 

The  gift  has  in  itself  no  limit  short  of  participation 
in  the  likeness  of  Christ.  In  another  place  in  this  letter 
the  measure  of  that  might  which  is  the  guarantee  of 
Christian  hope  is  set  forth  with  an  abundance  of  ex- 
pression which  might  almost  sound  as  an  unmeaning 
accumulation  of  synonyms,  as  being  'according  to  the 
working  of  the  strength  of  His  might  which  He 
wrought  in  Christ' ;  and  what  is  the  range  of  the  work- 
ing of  that  might  is  disclosed  to  our  faith  in  the  Resur- 
rection of  Jesus,  and  the  setting  of  Him  high  above  all 
rule  and  authority  and  power  and  lordship  and  every 
creature  in  the  present  or  in  any  future.  Paul's  con- 
tinual teaching  is  that  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ 
was  wrought  in  Him,  not  as  a  mere  human  individual 
but  as  our  head  and  representative.  Through  Him 
we  rise,  not  only  from  an  ethical  death  of  sin  and 
separation  from  God,  but  we  shall  rise  from  physical 
death,  and  in  Him  the  humblest  believer  possessing  a 
vital  union  with  the  Lord  of  life  has  a  share  in  His 
dominion,  and,  as  His  own  faithful  word  has  promised, 
sits  with  Him  on  His  throne,  even  as  He  is  set  down 
with  the  Father  on  His  throne. 

That  gift  has  in  itself  no  limit  short  of  its  own  energy. 
In  another  part  of  this  epistle  the  Apostle  indicates 
the  measure  up  to  which  our  being  filled  is  to  take 
effect,  as  being  '  all  the  fulness  of  God,'  and  in  such  an 
overwhelming  vision  breaks  forth  into  fervent  praise  of 
Him  who  is  able  to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all 
that  we  ask  or  think,  and  then  supplies  us  with  a  measure 
which  may  widen  and  heighten  our  petitions  and  ex- 
pectations when  He  tells  us  that  we  are  to  find  the 


IT. 7]       'THE  MEASURE  OF  GRACE'        213 

measure  of  God's  working  for  us,  not  in  the  impoverish- 
ment of  our  present  possessions,  but  in  the  exceeding 
riches  of  the  power  that  worketh  in  us — that  is  to  say, 
that  we  are  to  look  for  the  limit  of  the  limitless  gift  in 
nothing  short  of  the  boundless  energy  of  God  Himself. 
In  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  Paul  uses  the  same 
illustration  with  an  individual  reference  to  his  own 
labours.  In  our  text  he  associates  with  himself  all 
believers,  as  being  conscious  of  a  power  working  in 
them,  which  is  really  the  limitless  power  of  God,  and 
heartens  them  to  anticipate  that  whatever  limitless 
power  can  effect  in  them  will  certainly  be  theirs.  God 
does  not  leave  off  till  He  has  done  and  till  He  can  look 
upon  His  completed  work  and  pronounce  it  very  good. 

III.  This  boundless  grace  is  in  each  individual  case 
bounded  for  the  time  by  our  own  faith. 

When  I  lived  near  the  New  Forest  I  used  to  hear 
much  of  what  they  called  *  rolling  fences.'  A  man  re- 
ceived or  took  a  little  piece  of  Crown  land  on  which  he 
built  a  house  and  put  round  it  a  fence  which  could 
be  judiciously  and  silently  pushed  outwards  by  slow 
degrees  and  enclosed,  year  by  year,  a  wider  area.  We 
Christian  people  have,  as  it  were,  our  own  small,  culti- 
vated plot  on  the  boundless  prairie,  the  extent  of  which 
we  measure  for  ourselves  and  which  we  can  enlarge  as 
we  will.  We  have  been  speaking  of  the  various  aspects 
under  which  the  boundlessness  of  the  gift  is  presented 
by  the  Apostle,  but  there  is  another  '  according  to '  in 
Christ's  own  w^ords,  '  According  to  your  faith  be  it  unto 
you,'  and  that  statement  lays  down  the  practical  limits 
of  our  present  possession  of  the  boundless  gift.  We 
have  as  much  as  we  desire;  we  have  as  much  as  we 
take ;  we  have  as  much  as  we  use  ;  we  have  as  much  as 
we  can  hold.    We  are  admitted  into  the  treasure  house, 


214    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

and  all  around  us  lie  ingots  of  gold  and  vessels  full  of 
coins ;  we  ourselves  determine  how  much  of  the  treasure 
should  be  ours,  and  if  at  any  time  we  feel  like  empty- 
handed  paupers  rather  than  like  possible  millionaires, 
the  reason  lies  in  our  own  slowness  to  take  that  which 
is  freely  given  to  us  of  God.  His  word  to  us  all  is, 
'  Ye  are  not  straitened  in  Me,  ye  are  straitened  in  your- 
selves.' It  is  well  for  us  to  keep  ever  before  us  the 
boundlessness  of  the  gift  in  itself  and  the  working 
limit  in  ourselves  which  conditions  our  actual  posses- 
sion of  the  riches.  For  so,  on  the  one  hand,  should  we 
be  encouraged  to  expect  great  things  from  God,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  be  humbled  by  the  contrast  between 
what  we  might  be  and  what  we  are.  The  river  that 
rushes  full  of  water  from  the  throne  can  send  but  a 
narrow  and  shallow  trickle  through  the  narrow  channel 
choked  with  much  rubbish,  which  we  provide  for  it. 
It  is  of  little  avail  that  the  sun  in  the  heavens  pours 
down  its  flood  of  light  and  warmth  if  the  windows  of 
our  hearts  are  by  our  own  faults  so  darkened  that 
but  a  stray  beam,  shorn  of  its  brightness  and  warmth, 
can  find  its  way  into  our  darkness.  The  first  lesson 
which  we  have  to  draw  from  the  contrast  between  the 
boundlessness  of  the  gift  and  the  narrow  limits  of  our 
individual  possession  and  experience  of  it,  is  the  lesson 
of  penitent  recognition  and  confession  of  the  unbelief 
which  lurks  in  our  strongest  faith.  'Lord  I  believe, 
help  Thou  mine  unbelief,'  should  be  the  prayer  of  every 
Christian  soul. 

Not  less  surely  will  the  recognition  that  the  form  and 
amount  of  the  grace  of  God,  which  is  possessed  by  each, 
is  determined  by  the  faith  of  each,  lead  to  tolerance 
of  the  diversity  of  gifts.  We  have  received  our  own 
proper  gift  of  God,  that  which  the  strength  and  purity 


Y.7]       *THE  xMEASURE  OF  GRACE'        215 

of  our  faith  is  capable  of  possessing,  and  it  is  not  for 
us  to  carp  at  our  brethren,  either  at  those  in  advance 
of  us  or  at  those  behind  us.  "We  have  to  remember  that 
as  it  takes  all  sorts  of  people  to  make  up  a  world,  so  it 
takes  all  varieties  of  Christian  character  to  make  a 
church.  It  is  the  body  and  not  the  individual  members 
which  represents  Christ  to  the  world.  The  firmest 
adherence  to  our  own  form  of  the  universal  gift  will 
combine  with  the  widest  toleration  of  the  gifts  of 
others.  The  white  light  appears  when  red,  green,  and 
blue  blend  together,  not  when  each  tries  to  be  the  other. 
'  Every  man  hath  his  own  proper  gift  of  God,  one  after 
this  fashion  and  another  after  that,'  and  we  shall  be 
true  to  the  boundlessness  of  the  gift  and  to  the  limita- 
tions of  our  own  possession  of  it,  in  the  measure  of 
which  we  combine  obedience  to  the  light  which  shines 
in  us,  with  thankful  recognition  of  that  which  is  granted 
to  others. 

The  contrast  between  these  two  must  be  kept  vivid 
if  we  would  live  in  the  freedom  of  the  hope  of  the  glory 
of  God,  for  in  the  contrast  lies  the  assurance  of  endless 
growth.  A  process  is  begun  in  every  Christian  soul  of 
which  the  only  natural  end  is  the  full  possession  of 
God  in  Christ,  and  that  full  possession  can  never  be 
reached  by  a  finite  creature,  but  that  does  not  mean 
that  the  ideal  mocks  us  and  retreats  before  us  like  the 
pot  of  gold,  which  the  children  fancy  is  at  the  end  of 
the  rainbow.  Rather  it  means  a  continuous  succession 
of  our  realisations  of  the  ideal  in  ever  fuller  and  more 
blessed  reality.  In  this  life  we  may,  on  condition  of 
our  growth  in  faith,  grow  in  the  possession  of  the  ful- 
ness of  God,  and  yet  at  each  moment  that  possession 
will  be  greater,  though  at  all  moments  we  may  be  filled. 
In  the  Christian  life  to-morrow  may  be  safely  reckoned 


216    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

as  destined  to  be  'as  yesterday  and  much  more  abun- 
dant,' and  when  we  pass  from  the  imperfections  of  the 
most  perfect  earthly  life,  there  will  still  remain  ever 
before  us  the  glory,  which,  according  to  the  measure  of 
our  capacity,  is  also  in  us,  and  we  shall  draw  nearer 
and  nearer  to  it,  and  be  for  ever  receiving  into  our 
expanding  spirits  more  and  more  of  the  infinite  ful- 
ness of  God. 


THE  GOAL  OF  PROGRESS 

'Till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Son  of  God,  unto  a  full  grown  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulnesa 
of  Christ.'— Eph.  iv.  13  (R.V.). 

The  thought  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  is  much  in  the 
Apostle's  mind  in  this  epistle.  It  is  set  forth  in  many 
places  by  his  two  favourite  metaphors  of  the  body  and 
the  temple,  by  the  relation  of  husband  and  wife  and 
by  the  family.  It  is  contemplated  in  its  great  historical 
realisation  by  the  union  of  Jew  and  Gentile  in  one 
whole.  In  the  preceding  context  it  is  set  forth  as 
already  existing,  but  also  as  lying  far-off  in  the  future. 
The  chapter  begins  with  an  earnest  exhortation  to 
preserve  this  unity  and  with  an  exhibition  of  the 
oneness  which  does  really  exist  in  body,  spirit,  hope, 
lord,  faith,  baptism.  But  the  Apostle  swiftly  passes 
to  the  corresponding  thought  of  diversity.  There  are 
varieties  in  the  gifts  of  the  one  Spirit;  whilst  each 
individual  in  the  one  whole  receives  his  due  portion, 
there  are  broad  differences  in  spiritual  gifts.  These 
differences  do  not  break  the  oneness,  but  they  may 
tend  to  do  so ;  they  are  not  causes  of  separation  and 
do  not  necessarily  interfere  with  unity,  but  they  may 
be  made  so.    Their  existence  leaves  room  for  brotherly 


V.13]        THE  GOAL  OF  PROGRESS  217 

helpfulness,  and  creates  a  necessity  for  it.  The  wiser 
are  to  teach ;  the  more  advanced  are  to  lead ;  the  more 
largely  gifted  are  to  encourage  and  stimulate  the  less 
richly  endowed.  Such  outward  helps  and  brotherly 
impartations  of  gifts  is,  on  the  one  hand,  a  result  of 
the  one  gift  to  the  whole  body,  and  is  on  the  other  a 
sign  of,  because  a  necessity  arising  from,  the  imperfect 
degree  in  which  each  individual  has  received  of  Christ's 
fulness;  and  these  helps  of  teaching  and  guidance  have 
for  their  sole  object  to  make  Christian  men  able  to  do 
without  them,  and  are,  as  the  text  tells  us,  to  cease 
when,  and  to  last  till,  we  all  attain  to  the  fulness  of 
Christ.  To  Paul,  then,  the  manifest  unity  of  the 
Church  was  to  be  the  end  of  its  earthly  course,  but  it 
also  was  real,  though  incomplete,  in  the  present,  and 
the  emphasis  of  our  text  is  not  so  much  laid  on  telling 
us  when  this  oneness  was  to  be  manifested  as  in  show- 
ing us  in  what  it  consists.  We  have  here  a  threefold 
expression  of  the  true  unity,  as  consisting  in  a  one- 
ness of  relation  to  Christ,  a  consequent  maturity  of 
manhood  and  a  perfect  possession  of  all  which  is  in 
Christ. 

I.  The  true  unity  is  oneness  of  relation  to  Christ. 

The  Revised  Version  is  here  to  be  preferred,  and  its 
'attain  unto'  brings  out  the  idea  which  the  Authorised 
Version  fails  to  express,  that  the  text  is  intended  to 
point  to  the  period  at  which  Christ's  provision  of  help- 
ful gifts  to  the  growing  Church  is  to  cease,  when  the 
individuals  composing  it  have  come  to  their  destined 
unity  and  maturity  in  Him.  The  three  clauses  of  our 
text  are  each  introduced  by  the  same  preposition,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  in  the  second  and  third  it 
should  be  rendered  'unto'  and  in  the  first  should  be 
watered  down  to  '  in.* 


218   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS   [ch.  iv. 

There  are  then  two  regions  in  which  this  unity  is  to 
be  realised.  These  are  expressed  by  the  great  words, 
'the  unity  of  the  faith  and  knowledge  of  the  Son  of 
God.'  These  words  are  open  to  a  misunderstanding, 
as  if  they  referred  to  a  unity  as  between  faith  and 
knowledge ;  but  it  is  obvious  to  the  slightest  reflection 
that  wdiat  is  meant  is  the  unity  of  all  believers  in 
regard  to  their  faith,  and  in  regard  to  their  knowledge. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Apostle  has  just  said  that 
there  is  one  faith,  now  he  points  to  the  realisation  of 
that  oneness  as  the  very  end  and  goal  of  all  discipline 
and  growth.  I  suppose  that  we  have  to  think  here  of 
the  manifold  and  sad  differences  existing  in  Christian 
men,  in  regard  to  the  depth  and  constancy  and 
formative  power  of  their  faith.  There  are  some  who 
have  it  so  strong  and  vigorous  that  it  is  a  vision  rather 
than  a  faith,  a  trust,  deep  and  firm  and  settled,  to 
which  the  present  is  but  the  fleeting  shadow,  and  the 
unseen  the  eternal  and  only  reality ;  but,  alas  I  there 
are  others  in  whom  the  light  of  faith  burns  feebly  and 
flickers.  Nor  are  these  differences  the  attributes  of 
different  men,  but  the  same  man  varies  in  the  power 
of  his  faith,  and  we  all  of  us  know  what  it  is  to  have 
it  sometimes  dominant  over  our  whole  selves,  and 
sometimes  weak  and  crushed  under  the  weight  of 
earthly  passions.  To-day  we  may  be  all  flame,  to- 
morrow all  ice.  Our  faith  may  seem  to  us  to  be  strong 
enough  to  move  mountains,  and  before  an  hour  is  past 
we  may  find  it,  by  experience,  to  be  less  than  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed.  'Action  and  reaction  are  always 
equal  and  contrary,'  and  that  law  is  as  true  in  reference 
to  our  present  spiritual  life  as  it  is  true  in  regard  to 
physical  objects.  We  have,  then,  the  encouragement 
of  such  a  word  as  that  of  our  text  for  looking  forward 


V.13]        THE  GOAL  OF  PROGRESS  219 

to  and  straining  towards  the  reversal  of  these  sad 
alterations  in  a  fixed  and  continuous  faith  which  should 
grasp  the  whole  Christ  and  should  always  hold  Him. 
There  may  still  be  diversities  and  degrees,  but  each 
should  have  his  measure  always  full.  'Thy  Sun  shall 
no  more  go  down ' ;  there  will  no  longer  be  the  contrast 
between  the  flashing  waters  of  a  flood-tide  and  the 
dreary  mud-banks  disclosed  at  low  water.  We  shall 
stand  at  different  points,  but  the  faces  of  all  will  be 
turned  to  Him  who  is  the  Light  of  all,  and  every  face 
will  shine  with  the  likeness  of  His,  when  we  see  Him 
as  He  is. 

But  our  text  points  us  to  another  form  of  unity — the 
oneness  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God. 

The  Apostle  uses  an  emphatic  term  which  is  very 
familiar  on  his  lips  to  designate  this  knowledge.  It 
means  not  a  mere  intellectual  apprehension,  but  a 
profound  and  vital  acquaintance,  dependent  indeed 
upon  faith,  and  realised  in  experience.  It  is  the  know- 
ledge for  which  Paul  was  ready  to  'count  all  things 
but  loss '  that  he  might  know  Jesus,  and  winning  which 
he  would  count  himself  to  'have  apprehended.'  The 
unity  in  this  deep  and  blessed  knowledge  has  nothing 
to  do  with  identity  of  opinion  on  the  points  which  have 
separated  Christians.  It  is  not  to  be  sought  by  out- 
ward unanimity,  nor  by  aggregation  in  external  com- 
munities. The  Apostle's  great  thought  is  made  small 
and  the  truth  of  it  is  falsified  when  it  is  over-hastily 
embodied  in  institutions.  It  has  been  sought  in  a 
uniformity  which  resembles  unity  as  much  as  a  bundle 
of  faggots,  all  cut  to  the  same  length,  and  tied  together 
with  a  rope,  resemble  the  tree  from  which  they  were 
chopped,  waving  in  the  wind  and  living  one  life  to  the 
tips  of  its  furthest  branches.    Men  have  made  out  of 


220    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

the  Apostle's  divine  vision  of  a  unity  in  the  faith  and 
knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God  'a  staunch  and  solid 
piece  of  framework  as  any  January  could  freeze  to- 
gether,' and  few  things  have  stood  more  in  the  way  of 
the  realisation  of  his  glowing  anticipations  than  the 
formation  of  the  great  Corporation,  imposing  from  its 
bulk  and  antiquity,  to  part  from  which  was  branded 
as  breaking  the  unity  of  the  spirit. 

Paul  gives  no  clear  definition  here  of  the  time  when 
the  one  body  of  Christian  believers  should  have  attained 
to  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  knowledge  of  the  Son  of 
God,  and  the  question  may  not  have  presented  itself  to 
him.  It  may  appear  that  in  view  of  the  immediate 
context  he  regards  the  goal  as  one  to  be  reached  in 
our  present  life,  or  it  may  be  that  he  is  thinking  rather 
of  the  Future,  when  the  Master  •  should  bring  together 
every  joint  and  member  and  mould  them  into  an 
immortal  feature  of  loveliness  and  perfection.'  But 
the  time  at  which  this  great  ideal  should  be  attained 
is  altogether  apart  from  the  obligation  pressing  upon 
us  all,  at  all  times,  to  work  towards  it.  Whensoever  it 
is  reached  it  will  only  be  by  our  drawing  '  nearer,  day 
by  day,  each  to  his  brethren,  all  to  God,'  or  rather,  each 
to  God  and  so  all  to  his  brethren.  Take  twenty  points 
in  a  great  circle  and  let  each  be  advanced  by  one  half 
of  its  distance  to  the  centre,  how  much  nearer  will 
each  be  to  each  ?  Christ  is  our  unity,  not  dogmas,  not 
polities,  not  rituals:  our  oneness  is  a  oneness  of  life. 
We  need  for  our  centre  no  tower  w  ith  a  top  reaching 
to  heaven,  we  have  a  living  Lord  who  is  with  us,  and 
in  Him,  we  being  many,  are  one. 

II.  Oneness  in  faith  and  knowledge  knits  all  into  a 
'  perfect  man.' 

*  Perfect,'  the  Apostle  here  uses  in  opposition  to  the 


T.13]        THE  GOAL  OF  PROGRESS  221 

immediately  following  expression  in  the  next  verse, 
of  'children.'  It  therefore  means  not  so  much  moral 
perfection  as  maturity  or  fulness  of  growth.  So  long 
as  we  fall  short  of  the  state  of  unity  we  are  in  the 
stage  of  immaturity.  When  we  come  to  be  one  in 
faith  and  knowledge  we  have  reached  full-grown  man- 
hood. The  existence  of  differences  belongs  to  the 
infancy  and  boyhood  of  the  Church,  and  as  we  grow 
one  we  are  putting  away  childish  things.  What  a 
contrast  there  is  between  Paul's  vision  here  and  the 
tendency  which  has  been  too  common  among  Chris- 
tians to  magnify  their  differences,  and  to  regard  their 
obstinate  adherence  to  these  as  being  '  steadfastness  in 
the  faith'!  How  different  would  be  the  relations 
between  the  various  communities  into  which  the  one 
body  has  been  severed,  if  they  all  fully  believed  that 
their  respective  shibboleths  were  signs  that  they  hnd 
not  yet  attained,  neither  were  already  perfect!  When 
we  began  to  be  ashamed  of  these  instead  of  glorying  in 
them  we  should  be  beginning  to  grow  into  the  maturity 
of  our  Christian  life. 

But  the  Apostle  speaks  of '  a  perfect  man '  in  the  singu- 
lar and  not  of  '  men '  in  the  plural,  as  he  has  already 
described  the  result  of  the  union  of  Jew  and  Gentile  as 
being  the  making  *of  twain  one  new  man.'  This 
remarkable  expression  sets  forth,  in  the  strongest 
terms,  the  vital  unity  which  connects  all  members  of 
the  one  body  so  closely  that  there  is  but  one  life  in 
them  all.  There  are  many  members,  but  one  body. 
Their  functions  differ,  but  the  life  in  them  all  is 
identical.  The  eye  cannot  say  to  the  hand,  'I  have 
no  need  of  thee,'  nor  again  the  head  to  the  feet,  'I 
have  no  need  of  you.'  Each  is  necessary  to  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  whole,  and  all  are  necessary  to  make 


222    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [en.  iv. 

up  the  one  body  of  Christ.  It  is  His  life  which 
manifests  itself  in  every  member  and  which  gives 
clearness  of  vision  to  the  eye,  strength  and  deftness  to 
the  hand.  He  needs  us  all  for  His  work  on  the  world 
and  for  His  revelation  to  the  world  of  the  fulness  of 
His  life.  In  some  parts  of  England  there  are  bell- 
ringers  who  stand  at  a  table  on  which  are  set  bells, 
each  tuned  to  one  note,  and  they  can  perform  most 
elaborate  pieces  of  music  by  swiftly  catching  up  and 
sounding  each  of  these  in  the  right  place.  All  Christian 
souls  are  needed  for  the  Master's  hand  to  bring  out  the 
note  of  each  in  its  place.  In  the  lowest  forms  of  life 
all  vital  functions  are  performed  by  one  simple  sac, 
and  the  higher  the  creature  is  in  the  scale  the  more 
are  its  organs  differentiated.  In  the  highest  form  of 
all,  '  as  the  body  is  one,  and  hath  many  members,  and 
all  the  members  of  the  body,  being  many,  are  one  body, 
BO  also  is  Christ.' 

III.  This  perfect  manhood  is  the  possession  of  all 
who  are  in  Christ. 

The  fulness  of  Christ  is  the  fulness  which  belongs 
to  Him,  or  that  of  which  He  is  full.  All  which  He  is 
and  has  is  to  be  poured  into  His  servants,  and  when 
all  this  is  communicated  to  them  the  goal  will  be 
reached.  We  shall  be  full-grown  men,  and  more  won- 
derful still,  we  all  shall  make  one  perfect  man,  and 
individual  completenesses  will  blend  into  that  which  is 
more  complete  than  any  of  these,  the  one  body,  which 
corresponds  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fulness  of  Christ. 

This  is  the  goal  of  humanity  in  which,  and  in 
which  alone,  the  dreams  of  thinkers  about  perfecti- 
bility will  become  facts,  and  the  longings  that  are 
deeply  rooted  in  every  soul  will  find  their  fulfilment. 


V.13]         THE  GOAL  OF  PROGRESS  223 

By  our  personal  union  with  Jesus  Christ  through  faith, 
our  individual  perfection,  both  in  the  sense  of  maturity 
and  in  that  of  the  realisation  of  ideal  manhood,  is 
assured,  and  in  Him  the  race,  as  well  as  the  individual, 
is  redeemed,  and  will  one  day  be  glorified.  The  Utopias 
of  many  thinkers  are  but  partial  and  distorted  copies 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  The  reality  which  He  brings 
and  imparts  is  greater  than  all  these,  and  when  the 
New  Jerusa,lem  comes  down  out  of  heaven,  and  is 
planted  on  the  common  earth,  it  will  outvie  in  lustre 
and  outlast  in  permanence  all  forms  of  human  associa- 
tion. The  city  of  wisdom  which  was  Athens,  the  city 
of  power  which  was  Rome,  the  city  of  commerce  which 
is  London,  the  city  of  pleasure  which  is  Paris,  'pale 
their  ineffectual  fires '  before  the  city  in  the  light  whereof 
the  nations  should  walk. 

The  beginning  of  the  process,  of  which  the  end  is 
this  inconceivable  participation  in  the  glory  of  Jesus, 
is  simple  trust  in  Him.  'He  that  is  joined  to  the 
Lord  is  one  spirit,'  and  he  who  trusts  in  Him,  loves 
Him,  and  obeys  Him,  is  joined  to  Him,  and  thereby 
is  started  on  a  course  which  never  halts  nor  stays 
so  long  as  the  faith  which  started  him  abides,  till 
he  'grows  up  into  Him  in  all  things  which  is  the 
head,  even  Christ.'  The  experience  of  the  Christian 
life  as  God  means  it  to  be,  and  by  the  communication 
of  His  grace  makes  it  possible  for  it  to  become,  is  like 
that  of  men  embarked  on  some  sun-lit  ocean,  sailing 
past  shining  headlands,  and  ever  onwards,  over  the 
boundless  blue,  beneath  a  calm  sky  and  happy  stars. 
The  blissful  voyagers  are  in  full  possession  at  every 
moment  of  all  which  they  need  and  of  all  of  His 
fulness  which  they  can  contain,  but  the  full  possession 
at  every  moment    increases   as  they,   by  it,   become 


224    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

capable  of  fuller  possession.  Increasing  capacity  brings 
with  it  increasing  participation  in  the  boundless  ful- 
ness of  Him  who  filleth  aU  in  all. 


CHRIST  OUR  LESSON  AND  OUR  TEACHER 

•But  ye  have  not  so  learned  Christ ;  If  so  be  that  ye  have  heard  Him,  and  have 
been  taught  in  Him.'— Eph.  iv.  20,  21. 

The  Apostle  has  been  describing  in  very  severe  terms 
the  goJlessness  and  corruption  of  heathenism.  He 
reckons  on  the  assent  of  the  Ephesian  Christians  when 
he  paints  the  society  in  which  they  lived  as  alienated 
from  God,  insensible  to  the  restraints  of  conscience, 
and  foul  with  all  uncleanness.  That  was  a  picture  of 
heathenism  drawn  from  the  life  and  submitted  to  the 
judgment  of  those  who  knew  the  original  only  too 
well.  It  has  been  reserved  for  modern  eulogists  to 
regard  such  statements  as  exaggerations.  Those  who 
knew  heathenism  from  the  inside  knew  that  they  were 
sober  truth.  The  colonnades  of  the  stately  temple  of 
Ephesus  stank  with  proofs  of  their  correctness. 

Out  of  that  mass  of  moral  putridity  these  Ephesian 
Christians  had  been  dragged.  But  its  effects  still 
lingered  in  them,  and  it  was  all  about  them  with  its 
pestilential  miasma.  So  the  first  thing  that  they 
needed  was  to  be  guarded  against  it.  The  Apostle,  in 
the  subsequent  context,  with  great  earnestness  gives 
a  series  of  moral  injunctions  of  the  most  elementary 
kind.  Their  very  simplicity  is  eloquent.  What  sort 
of  people  must  they  have  formerly  been  who  needed 
to  be  bade  not  to  steal  and  not  to  lie  ? 

But  before  he  comes  to  the  specific  duties,  he  lays 
down  the  broad  general  principle  of  which  all  these 
are  to  be  but  manifestations— viz.  that  they  and  we 


TB.20,21]     LESSON  AND  TEACHER  225 

need,  as  the  foundation  of  all  noble  conduct  and  of  all 
theoretical  ethics,  the  suppression  and  crucifixion  of 
the  old  self  and  the  investiture  with  a  new  self.  And 
this  double  necessity,  says  the  Apostle  in  my  text,  is 
the  plain  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  to  all  His  disciples. 

Now  the  words  which  I  have  selected  as  my  text  are 
but  a  fragment  of  a  closely  concatenated  whole,  but  I 
may  deal  with  them  separately  at  this  time.  They  are 
very  remarkable.  They  lay,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the 
basis  for  all  Christian  conduct;  and  they  teach  us  how 
there  is  no  real  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  which  does 
not  effloresce  into  the  practice  of  these  virtues  and 
graces  which  the  Apostle  goes  on  to  describe. 

I.  First,  Christ  our  Lesson  and  Christ  our  Teacher. 

Mark  the  singular  expression  with  which  this  text 
begins.  *  Ye  have  not  so  learned  Christ.'  Now,  we 
generally  talk  about  learning  a  subject,  a  language, 
a  science,  or  an  art;  but  we  do  not  talk  about  learning 
people.  But  Paul  says  we  are  Christ's  disciples,  not 
only  in  the  sense  that  we  learn  of  Him  as  Teacher — 
which  follows  in  the  next  clause — but  that  we  learn 
Him  as  the  theme  of  our  study. 

That  is  to  say,  the  relation  of  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  all  that  He  has  to  teach  and  reveal  to  the 
world  is  altogether  different  from  that  of  all  other 
teachers  of  all  sorts  of  truth,  to  the  truth  which  they 
proclaim.  You  can  accept  the  truths  and  dismiss  into 
oblivion  the  men  from  whom  you  got  them.  But  you 
cannot  reject  Christ  and  take  Christianity.  The  two 
are  inseparably  united.  For,  in  regard  to  all  spiritual 
and  to  all  moral  truth — truth  about  conduct  and  char- 
acter— Jesus  Christ  is  what  He  teaches.  So  we  may 
say,  turning  well-known  words  of  a  poet  in  another 
direction :  *  My  lesson  is  in  Thee.' 

P 


226    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [en.  iv. 

But  that  is  not  all.  My  text  goes  on  to  speak  about 
another  thing :  '  Ye  have  learned  Christ  if  so  be  that 
ye  have  heard  Him  and  been  taught.'  Now  that  'If  so 
be'  is  not  the  'if  of  uncertainty  or  doubt,  but  it  is 
equivalent  to  '  if,  as  I  know  to  be  the  case,'  or  'since  ye 
have  heard  Him.'  Aw^ay  there  in  Ephesus,  years  and 
years  after  the  crucifixion,  these  people  who  had  never 
seen  Christ  in  the  flesh,  nor  heard  a  word  from  the 
lips  '  into  Avhich  grace  was  poured,'  are  yet  addressed 
by  the  Apostle  as  those  who  had  listened  to  Him  and 
heard  Him  speak.  They  had  '  heard  Him  and  been 
taught.'  So  He  was  Lesson  and  He  was  Teacher.  And 
that  is  as  true  about  us  as  it  was  about  them.  Let 
me  say  only  a  word  or  two  about  each  of  these  two 
thoughts. 

I  have  already  suggested  that  the  underlying  truth 
which  warrants  the  first  of  them  is  that  Jesus  Christ's 
relation  to  His  message  and  revelation  is  altogether 
different  from  that  of  other  teachers  to  Mhat  they 
have  to  communicate  to  the  world.  Of  course  we  all 
know  that,  in  regard  to  the  wider  sphere  of  religious 
and  Christian  truth,  it  is  not  only  what  Christ  said, 
but  even  more  what  He  did  and  was,  that  makes  His 
revelation  of  the  Father's  heart.  Precious  as  are  the 
w^ords  which  drop  from  His  lips,  which  are  spirit  and 
are  life,  His  life  itself  is  more  than  all  His  teachings ; 
and  it  is  when  we  learn,  not  from  Him,  but  when  we 
learn  Him,  that  we  see  the  Father.  But  my  text  has 
solely  reference  to  conduct,  and  in  that  aspect  it  just 
implies  this  thought,  that  the  sum  of  all  duty,  the 
height  of  all  moral  perfectness,  the  realised  ideal  of 
humanity,  is  in  Christ,  and  that  the  true  way  to  know 
what  a  man  or  a  nation  ought  to  do  is  to  study  Him. 

How  strange  it  is,  when  one  comes  to  consider  it, 


vs.  20, 21]     LESSON  AND  TEACHER  227 

that  the  impression  of  absolute  perfection,  free  from 
all  limitations  of  race  or  country  or  epoch  or  indi- 
vidual character — and  yet  not  a  vague  abstraction  but 
a  true  living  Person — has  been  printed  upon  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  the  world  by  these  four  little  pamphlets 
which  we  call  gospels !  I  do  not  think  that  there 
is  anything  in  the  whole  history  of  literature  to  com- 
pare with  the  impression  of  veracity  and  histoi-ical 
reality  and  individual  personality  which  is  made  by 
these  fragmentary  narratives.  And  although  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  my  present  subject,  I  may  just  say 
in  a  sentence  that  it  seems  to  me  that  the  character  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  painted  in  the  Gospels,  in  its  incompar- 
able vividness  and  vitality,  is  one  of  the  strongest 
evidences  for  the  simple  faithfulness  as  biographies,  of 
these  books.  Nothing  else  but  the  Man  seen  could 
have  resulted  in  such  compositions. 

But  apart  altogether  from  that,  how  blessed  it  is 
that  we  have  not  to  enter  upon  any  lengthened  in- 
vestigations, far  beyond  the  power  of  average  minds, 
in  order  to  get  hold  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  moral 
conduct!  How  blessed  it  is  that  all  the  harshness  of 
'Obey  this  law  or  die'  is  by  His  life  changed  into 
'  Look  at  Me,  and,  for  My  love's  sake,  study  Me  and  be 
like  Me!'  This  is  the  blessed  peculiarity  which  gives 
all  its  power  and  distinctive  characteristic  to  the 
morality  of  the  Gospel,  that  law  is  changed  from  a 
statuesque  white  ideal,  pure  as  marble  and  cold  and 
lifeless  as  it,  into  a  living  Person  with  a  throbbing 
heart  of  love,  and  an  outstretched  hand  of  help,  whose 
word  is,  '  If  ye  love  Me,  keep  My  commandments,  and 
be  like  Me.' 

Christian  men  and  women  !  study  Jesus  Christ.  That 
is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  all  right  knowledge  of  duty 


228    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

g-nd  of  all  right  practice  of  it.  Learn  Him,  His  self- 
suppression,  His  self-command.  His  untroubled  calm- 
ness, His  immovable  patience.  His  continual  gentleness, 
His  constant  reference  of  all  things  to  the  Father's 
will.  Study  these.  To  imitate  Him  is  blessedness  ;  to 
resemble  Him  is  perfection.  *  Ye  have  learned  Christ' 
if  you  are  Christians  at  all.  You  have  at  least  begun 
the  alphabet,  but  oh  !  in  Him  'are  hid  all  the  treasures,' 
not  only  '  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,'  but  of  '  whatso- 
ever things  are  lovely  and  of  good  report';  and  'if 
there  is  any  virtue,  and  if  there  is  any  praise,'  we 
shall  find  them  in  Him  who  is  our  Lesson,  our  perfect 
Lesson. 

But  that  is  not  all.  Lessons  are  very  well,  but- 
dear  me  ! — the  world  wants  something  besides  lessons. 
It  has  had  plenty  of  teaching.  The  trouble  is  not  that 
we  are  not  instructed,  but  that  we  do  not  take  the 
lessons  that  are  laid  before  us.  And  so  my  text 
suggests  another  thing  besides  the  wholly  inadequate 
conception,  as  it  would  be  if  it  stood  alone,  of  a  mere 
exhibition  of  what  we  ought  to  be. 

'If  so  be  that  ye  have  heard  Him.'  As  I  said,  these 
Ephesian  Christians,  far  away  in  Asia  Minor,  with  seas 
and  years  between  them  and  the  plains  of  Galilee  and 
the  Cross  of  Calvary,  are  yet  regarded  by  the  Apostle 
as  having  listened  to  Jesus  Christ-  We,  far  away 
down  the  ages,  and  in  another  corner  of  the  world,  as 
really,  without  metaphor,  in  plain  fact,  may  have 
Jesus  Christ  speaking  to  us,  and  may  hear  His  voice. 
These  Ephesians  had  heard  Him,  not  only  because 
they  had  heard  about  Him,  nor  because  they  had 
heard  Him  speaking  through  His  servant  Paul  and 
others,  but  because,  as  Paul  believed,  that  Lord,  who 
had  spoken  with  human  lips  words  which  it  was  pes- 


vs.  20,  21]     LESSON  AND  TEACHER  220 

Bible  for  a  man  to  utter  when  He  was  here  on  earth, 
when  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  w  as  still  speak- 
ing to  men,  even  according  to  His  own  promise,  which 
He  gave  at  the  very  close  of  His  career,  '  I  have  de- 
clared Thy  name  unto  My  brethren,  and  icill  declare 
it.*  So,  though  '  He  began  both  to  do  and  to  teach ' 
before  He  was  taken  up,  after  His  Ascension  He  con- 
tinues both  the  doing  and  the  tuition.  And,  in  verity, 
we  all  may  hear  His  voice  speaking  in  the  depths  of 
our  hearts ;  speaking  through  the  renewed  conscience  ; 
speaking  by  that  Spirit  who  will  guide  us  into  all  the 
truth  that  we  need;  speaking  through  the  ages  to  all 
who  will  listen  to  His  voice. 

The  conception  of  Christ  as  a  Teacher,  which  is  held 
by  many  who  deny  His  redeeming  work  and  dismiss 
as  incredible  His  divinity,  seems  to  me  altogether  in- 
adequate, unless  it  be  supplemented  by  the  belief  that 
He  now  has  and  exercises  the  power  of  communicating 
wisdom  and  knowledge  and  warning  and  stimulus  to 
waiting  hearts;  and  that  when  we  hear  within  the 
depth  of  our  souls  the  voice  saying  to  us,  '  This  is  the 
way,  walk  ye  in  it,'  or  saying  to  us,  '  Pass  not  by,  enter 
not  into  it,'  if  we  have  waited  for  Him,  and  studied 
His  example  and  character,  and  sought,  not  to  please 
ourselves,  but  to  be  led  by  His  wisdom,  we  may  be  sure 
that  it  is  Christ  Himself  who  speaks.  Reverence  the 
inward  monitor,  and  when  He  within  thy  heart,  by 
His  Spirit,  calls  thee,  do  thou  answer,  '  Speak,  Lord ! 
Thy  servant  heareth.'  *Ye  have  learned  Christ  if  so 
be  that  ye  have  hearkened  to  Him.' 

II.  Secondly,  mark  the  condition  of  learning  the 
Lesson  and  hearing  the  Teacher. 

Our  Authorised  Version,  in  accordance  with  its  very 
frequent  practice,  has  evacuated  the  last  words  of  my 


230    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

text  of  their  true  force  by  the  substitution  of  the  more 
intelligible  '  by  Him'  for  what  the  Apostle  writes — 'm 
Him.'  The  true  rendering  gives  us  the  condition  on 
which  we  learn  our  Lesson  and  hear  our  Teacher.  '  In 
Him '  is  no  mere  surplusage,  and  is  not  to  be  weakened 
down,  as  this  translation  of  ours  does,  into  a  mere  '  by 
Him,'  but  it  declares  that,  unless  we  keep  ourselves  in 
union  with  Jesus  Christ,  His  voice  will  not  be  heard  in 
our  hearts,  and  the  lesson  will  pass  unlearned. 

You  know,  dear  brother,  how  emphatically  and  con- 
tinually in  the  New  Testament  this  doctrine  of  the 
dwelling  of  the  believing  soul  in  Christ,  and  the  re- 
ciprocal dwelling  of  Christ  in  the  believing  soul,  is 
insisted  upon.  And  I,  for  my  part,  believe  that  one 
great  cause  of  the  unsatisfactory  condition  of  the 
average  Christianity  of  this  day  is  the  slurring  over 
and  minimising  of  these  twin  great  and  solemn  truths. 
I  would  fain  bring  you  back  to  the  Master's  words,  as 
declaring  the  deepest  truths  in  relation  to  the  con- 
nection between  the  believing  soul  and  the  Christ  in 
whom  it  believes : — '  Abide  in  Me,  and  I  in  you.'  I 
wish  you  would  go  home  and  take  this  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  and  read  it  over,  putting  a  pencil  mark 
below  each  place  in  which  occurs  the  words  '  in  Christ 
Jesus.'  I  think  you  would  learn  something  if  you 
would  do  it. 

But  all  that  I  have  to  say  at  present  is  that,  if  we 
would  keep  ourselves,  by  faith,  by  love,  by  meditation, 
by  aspiration,  by  the  submission  of  the  will,  and  by 
practical  obedience,  in  Jesus  Christ,  enclosed  in  Him 
as  it  were — then,  and  then  only,  should  we  learn  His 
lesson,  and  then,  and  then  only,  should  we  hear  Him 
speak.  Why !  if  you  never  think  about  Him,  how  can 
you  learn  Him?    If  you  seldom,  or  sleepily,  take  up 


vs.  20,  21]     LESSON  AND  TEACHER  231 

your  Bibles  and  read  the  Gospels,  of  what  good  is  His 
example  to  you  ?  If  you  wander  away  into  all  manner 
of  regions  of  thought  and  enjoyment  instead  of  keep- 
ing near  to  Him,  how  can  you  expect  that  He  will 
comnninicate  Himself  to  you?  If  we  keep  ourselves  in 
touch  with  that  Lord,  if  we  bring  all  our  actions  to 
Him,  and  measure  our  conduct  by  His  pattern,  then 
we  shall  learn  His  lesson.  What  does  a  student  in  a 
school  of  design  do?  lie  puts  his  feeble  copy  of  some 
great  picture  beside  the  original,  and  compares  it 
touch  for  touch,  line  for  line,  shade  for  shade,  and 
BO  corrects  its  errors.  Take  your  lives  to  the  Exemplar 
in  that  fashion,  and  go  over  them  bit  by  bit.  Is  this 
like  Jesus  Christ ;  is  that  what  He  would  have  done  ? 
Tl.on  'in  Him,'  thus  in  contact  with  Him,  thus  correct- 
ing our  daubs  by  the  perfect  picture,  we  shall  learn  our 
lesson  and  listen  to  our  Teacher. 

Still  your  passions,  muzzle  your  inclinations,  clap  a 
bridle  on  your  will,  and,  as  some  tumultuous  crowd 
would  be  hushed  into  silence  that  they  might  listen 
to  the  king  speaking  to  them,  make  a  great  silence  in 
your  hearts,  and  you  will  'hear  Ilim'  and  be  taught 
'in  Him.' 

III.  Lastly,  the  test  and  result  of  having  learned 
the  Lesson  and  listened  to  the  Teacher  is  unlikeness  to 
surrounding  corruption. 

'Ye  have  7iot  so  learned  Christ.'  Of  course  the 
hideous  immoralities  of  Ephesus  are  largely,  but  by  no 
means  altogether,  gone  from  Manchester.  Of  course, 
nineteen  centuries  of  Christianity  have  to  a  very  large 
extent  changed  the  tone  of  society  and  influenced  the 
moral  judgments  and  practices  even  of  persons  who 
are  not  Christians.  But  there  still  remains  a  world, 
and  there  still  remains  unfilled  up  the  gulf  betweeij 


232    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

the  worldly  and  the  godly  life.  And  I  believe  it  is  just 
as  needful  as  ever  it  was,  though  in  different  ways,  for 
Christians  to  exhibit  unlikeuess  to  the  world.  '  Not  so,' 
must  be  our  motto ;  or,  as  the  Jewish  patriot  said,  '  So 
did  not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of  the  Lord.' 

I  do  not  wish  you  to  make  yourselves  singular ;  I  do 
not  wish  you  to  wear  conventional  badges  of  unlike- 
ness  to  certain  selected  evil  habits.  A  Christian  man's 
unlikeness  to  the  world  consists  a  great  deal  more  in 
doing  or  being  what  it  does  not  do  and  is  not  than  in 
not  doing  or  being  what  it  does  and  is.  It  is  easy  to 
abstain  from  conventional  things ;  it  is  a  great  deal 
harder  to  put  in  practice  the  unworldly  virtues  of  the 
Christian  character. 

There  are  wide  regions  of  life  in  which  all  men  must 
act  alike,  be  they  saints  or  sinners,  be  they  believers, 
Agnostics,  Mohammedans,  Turks,  Jews,  or  anything 
else.  There  are  two  ways  of  doing  the  same  thing. 
If  two  women  were  sitting  at  a  grindstone,  one  of 
them  a  Christian  and  the  other  not,  the  one  that 
pushed  her  handle  half  round  the  circle  for  Christ's 
sake  would  do  it  in  a  different  fashion  from  the  other 
one  who  took  it  from  her  hand  and  brought  it  round  to 
the  other  side  of  the  stone,  and  did  it  without  reference 
to  God. 

Brethren,  be  sure  of  this,  that  if  you  and  I  do  not 
find  in  ourselves  the  impulse  to  abstain  from  coarse 
enjoyments,  to  put  our  feet  upon  passions  and  desires, 
appetites  and  aims,  which  godless  men  recognise  and 
obey  without  qualm  or  restraint,  we  need  to  ask  our- 
selves: 'In  what  sense  am  I  a  Christian,  or  in  what 
sense  have  I  heard  Christ  ? '  It  is  a  poor  affair  to  fling 
away  our  faithful  protest  against  the  world's  evils  for 
the  sake  of  receiving  the  world's  tmile.    Modern  Chris- 


vs.20,21]  DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE  233 

tianity  is  often  not  vital  enough  to  be  hated  by  a 
godless  world ;  and  it  is  not  hated  because  it  only 
deserves  to  be  scorned.  Keep  near  Jesus  Christ,  live 
in  the  light  of  His  face,  drink  in  the  inspiration  and 
instruction  of  His  example,  and  the  unlikeness  will 
come,  and  no  mistake.  Dwell  near  Him,  keep  in  Him, 
and  the  likeness  will  come,  as  it  always  comes  to  lovers, 
who  grow  to  resemble  that  or  those  whom  they  love. 
•  It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  to  be  as  his  Teacher,  and 
for  the  slave  to  be  like  his  Lord.' 


A  DARK  PICTURE  AND  A  BRIGHT  HOPE 

'That  ye  put  off,  concerning  the  former  conversation,  the  old  man,  which  la 
corrupt  according  to  the  deceitful  lusts.'— Eph.  iv.  22. 

If  a  doctor  knows  that  he  can  cure  a  disease  he  can 
afford  to  give  full  weight  to  its  gravest  symptoms.  If 
he  knows  he  cannot  he  is  sorely  tempted  to  say  it  is  of 
slight  importance,  and,  though  it  cannot  be  cured,  can 
be  endured  without  much  discomfort. 

And  so  the  Scripture  teachings  about  man's  real 
moral  condition  are  characterised  by  two  peculiarities 
which,  at  first  sight,  seem  somewhat  opposed,  but  are 
really  harmonious  and  closely  connected.  There  is  no 
book  and  no  system  in  the  whole  world  that  takes 
such  a  dark  view  of  what  you  and  I  are ;  there  is  none 
animated  with  so  bright  and  confident  a  hope  of  what 
you  and  I  may  become.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
common  run  of  thought  amongst  men  minimises  the 
fact  of  sin,  but  when  you  say,  'Well,  be  it  big  or 
little,  can  I  get  rid  of  it  anyhow?'  there  is  no  answer 
to  give  that  is  worth  listening  to.  Christ  alone  can 
venture  to  tell  men  what  they  are,  because  Christ 


234:    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

alone  can  radically  change  their  whole  nature  and 
being.  There  are  certain  diseases  of  which  a  constant 
symptom  is  unconsciousness  that  there  is  anything  the 
matter.  A  deep-seated  wound  does  not  hurt  much. 
The  question  is  not  whether  Christian  thoughts  about 
a  man's  condition  are  gloomy  or  not,  but  whether 
they  are  true.  As  to  their  being  gloomy,  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  people  who  complain  of  our  doctrine  of 
human  nature,  as  giving  a  melancholy  view  of  men,  do 
really  take  a  far  more  melancholy  one.  We  believe  in 
a  fall,  and  we  believe  in  a  possible  and  actual  restora- 
tion. The  man  to  whom  evil  is  not  an  intrusive 
usurper  can  have  no  coufidence  that  it  will  ever  be 
'  expelled.    Which  is   the  gloomy  system — that  which 

paints  in  undisguised  blackness  the  facts  of  life,  and 
over  against  their  blackest  darkness,  the  radiant  light 
of  a  great  hope  shining  bright  and  glorious,  or  one 
that  paints  humanity  in  a  uniform  monotone  of  indis- 
tinguishable grey  involving  the  past,  the  present,  and 
the  future — which,  believing  in  no  disease,  hopes  for 
no  cure?  My  text,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the 
grand  words  which  follow,  about '  The  new  man,  which, 
after  God,  is  created  in  righteousness  and  true  holi- 
ness,' brings  before  us  some  very  solemn  views  (which 
the  men  that  want  them  most  realise  the  least)  with 
regard  to  what  we  are,  what  we  ought  to  be  and  cannot 
be,  and  what,  by  God's  help,  we  may  become.  The  old 
man  is  '  corrupt  according  to  the  deceitful  lusts,'  says 
Paul.  There  are  a  set  of  characteristics,  then,  of  the 
universal  sinful  human  self.  Then  there  comes  a  hope- 
less commandment — a  mockery — if  we  are  to  stop  with 
it,  '  put  it  off.'  And  then  there  dawns  on  us  the  blessed 
hope  and  possibility  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  injunction, 
when  we  learn  that  'the  truth  in  Jesus'  is,  that  we  put 


V.  22]  DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE     235 

off  the  old  man  with  his  deeds.  Such  is  a  general  out- 
line of  the  few  thoughts  I  have  to  suggest  to  you. 

I.  I  wish  to  fix,  first  of  all,  upon  the  very  significant, 
though  brief,  outline  sketch  of  the  facts  of  universal 
sinful  human  nature  which  the  Apostle  gives  here. 

These  are  three,  upon  which  I  dilate  for  a  moment 
or  two.  '  The  old  man '  is  a  Pauline  expression,  about 
which  I  need  only  say  here  that  we  may  take  it  as 
meaning  that  form  of  character  and  life  which  is 
common  to  us  all,  apart  from  the  great  change  operated 
through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  universal,  it  is 
sinful.  There  is  a  very  remarkable  contrast,  which 
you  will  notice,  between  the  verse  upon  which  I  am 
now  commenting  and  the  following  one.  The  old  man 
is  set  over  against  the  new.  One  is  created,  the  other 
is  corrupted,  as  the  word  might  be  properly  rendered. 
The  one  is  created  after  God,  the  other  is  rotting  to 
pieces  under  the  influence  of  its  lusts.  The  one  con- 
sists of  righteousness  and  holiness,  which  have  their 
root  in  truth;  the  other  is  under  the  dominion  of  pas- 
sions and  desires,  which,  in  themselves  evil,  are  the 
instruments  of  and  are  characterised  by  deceit. 

The  first  of  the  characteristics,  then,  of  this  sinful 
self,  to  which  I  wish  to  point  for  a  moment  is,  that 
every  Christless  life,  whatsoever  the  superficial  differ- 
ences in  it,  is  really  a  life  shaped  according  to  and 
under  the  influence  of  passionate  desij^es.  You  see  I 
venture  to  alter  one  word  of  my  text,  and  that  for  this 
simple  reason;  the  word  'lusts'  has,  in  modern  Eng- 
lish, assumed  a  very  much  narrower  signification  than 
either  that  of  the  original  has,  or  than  itself  had  in 
English  when  this  translation  was  made.  It  is  a  very 
remarkable  testimony,  by  the  by,  to  the  weak  point  in 
the  bulk  of  men — to  the  side  of  their  nature  which  ig 


236    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [oh.iv. 

most  exposed  to  assaults — that  this  word,  which  origi- 
nally meant  strong  desire  of  any  kind,  should,  by  the 
observation  of  the  desires  that  are  strongest  in  the 
mass  of  people,  have  come  to  be  restricted  and  confined 
to  the  one  specific  meaning  of  strong  animal,  fleshly, 
sensuous  desires.  It  may  point  a  lesson  to  some  of  my 
congregation,  and  especially  to  the  younger  portion  of 
the  men  in  it.  Remember,  my  brother,  that  the  part 
of  your  nature  which  is  closest  to  the  material  is  like- 
wise closest  to  the  animal,  and  is  least  under  dominion 
(without  a  strong  and  constant  effort)  of  the  power 
which  will  save  the  flesh  from  corruption,  and  make 
the  m.aterial  the  vehicle  of  the  spiritual  and  divine. 
Many  a  young  man  comes  into  Manchester  with  the 
atmosphere  of  a  mother's  prayers  and  a  father's  teach- 
ing round  about  him;  with  holy  thoughts  and  good 
resolutions  beginning  to  sway  his  heart  and  spirit; 
and  flaunting  profligacy  and  seducing  tongues  beside 
him  in  the  counting-house,  in  the  warehouse,  and  at 
the  shop  counter,  lead  him  away  into  excesses  that 
banish  all  these,  and,  after  a  year  or  two  of  riot  and 
sowing  to  the  flesh,  he  *  of  the  flesh  reaps  corruption,' 
and  that  very  literally — in  sunken  eye,  and  trembling 
hand,  and  hacking  cough,  and  a  grave  opened  for  him 
before  his  time.  Ah,  my  dear  young  friends !  '  they 
promise  them  liberty.'  It  is  a  fine  thing  to  get  out  of 
your  father's  house,  and  away  from  the  restrictions  of 
the  society  where  you  are  known,  and  loving  eyes — 
or  unloving  ones — are  watching  you.  It  is  a  fine 
thing  to  get  into  the  freedom  and  irresponsibility  of  a 
big  city!  'They  promise  them  liberty,'  and  'they 
themselves  become  the  bond  slaves  of  corruption.' 

But,  then,  that  is  only  the  grossest  and  the  lowest 
form  of   the   truth  that  is  here.     Paul's    indictment 


V.  22]  DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE    237 

against  us  is  not  anything  so  exaggerated  and  extreme 
as  that  the  animal  nature  predominates  in  all  who  are 
not  Christ's.  That  is  not  true,  and  is  not  what  my  text 
says.  But  what  it  says  is  just  this  :  that,  given  the 
immense  varieties  of  tastes  and  likings  and  desires 
which  men  have,  the  point  and  characteristic  feature 
of  every  godless  life  is  that,  be  these  what  they  may, 
they  become  the  dominant  power  in  that  life.  Paul 
does  not,  of  course,  deny  that  the  sway  and  tyranny 
of  such  lusts  and  desires  are  sometimes  broken  by 
remonstrances  of  conscience ;  sometimes  suppressed 
by  considerations  of  prudence;  sometimes  by  habit, 
by  business,  by  circumstances  that  force  people  into 
channels  into  which  they  would  not  naturally  let  their 
lives  run.  He  does  not  deny  that  often  and  often  in 
euch  a  life  there  will  be  a  dim  desire  for  something 
better — that  high  above  the  black  and  tumbling  ocean 
of  that  life  of  corruption  and  disorder,  there  lies  a  calm 
heaven  with  great  stars  of  duty  shining  in  it.  He  does 
not  deny  that  men  are  a  law  to  themselves,  as  well  as 
a  bundle  of  desires  which  they  obey;  but  what  he 
charges  upon  us,  and  what  I  venture  to  bring  as  an 
indictment  against  you,  and  myself  too,  is  this :  that 
apart  from  Christ  it  is  not  conscience  that  rules  our 
lives  ;  that  apart  from  Christ  it  is  not  sense  of  duty  that 
is  strongest ;  that  apart  from  Christ  the  real  directing 
impulse  to  which  the  inward  proclivities,  if  not  the  out- 
ward activities,  do  yield  in  the  main  and  on  the  whole, 
is,  as  this  text  says,  the  things  that  we  like,  the  pas- 
sionate desires  of  nature,  the  sensuous  and  godless  heart. 
And  you  say,  'Well,  if  it  is  so,  what  harm  is  it?  Did 
not  God  make  me  with  these  desires,  and  am  not  I 
meant  to  gratify  them?'  Yes,  certainly.  The  harm  of 
it  is,  first  of  all,  this,  that  it  is  an  inversion  of  the  true 


238    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

order.  The  passionate  desires  about  which  I  am 
speaking,  be  they  for  money,  be  they  for  fame,  or  be 
they  for  any  other  of  the  gilded  baits  of  worldly  joys — 
these  passionate  dislikes  and  likings,  as  well  as  the 
purely  animal  ones — the  longing  for  food,  for  drink, 
for  any  other  physical  gratification — these  were  never 
meant  to  be  men's  guides.  They  are  meant  to  be 
impulses.  They  have  motive  power,  but  no  directing 
power.  Do  you  start  engines  out  of  a  railway  station 
without  drivers  or  rails  to  run  upon  ?  It  would  be  as 
reasonable  as  that  course  of  life  which  men  pursue  who 
say,  '  Thus  I  wish ;  thus  I  command ;  let  my  desire 
stand  in  the  place  of  other  argumentation  and  reason.' 
They  take  that  part  of  their  nature  that  is  meant  to  be 
under  the  guidance  of  reason  and  conscience  looking 
up  to  God,  and  put  it  in  the  supreme  place,  and  so, 
setting  a  beggar  on  horseback,  ride  where  we  know 
such  equestrians  are  said  in  the  end  to  go !  The 
desires  are  meant  to  be  impelling  powers.  It  is 
absurdity  and  the  destruction  of  true  manhood  to 
make  them,  as  we  so  often  do,  directing  powers,  and 
to  put  the  reins  into  their  hand.  They  are  the  wind, 
not  the  helm;  the  steam,  not  the  driver.  Let  us  keep 
things  in  their  right  places.  Remember  that  the  con- 
stitution of  human  nature,  as  God  has  meant  it,  is  this: 
down  there,  under  hatches,  under  control,  the  strong 
impulses;  above  them,  the  enlightened  understanding; 
above  that,  the  conscience,  which  has  a  loftier  region 
than  that  of  thought  to  move  in,  thai  moral  region  ; 
and  above  that,  the  God,  whose  face,  shining  down 
upon  the  npex  of  the  nature  thus  constituted,  irradiates 
it  with  light  which  filters  through  all  the  darkness, 
down  to  the  very  base  of  the  being ;  and  sanctifies  the 
animal,  and  subdues  the  impulses,  and  enlightens  the 


T.  22]  DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE     239 

understanding,  and  calms  and  quickens  the  conscience, 
and  makes  ductile  and  pliable  the  will,  and  fills  the 
heart  with  fruition  and  tranquillity,  and  orders  the  life 
after  the  image  of  Him  that  created  it. 

I  cannot  dwell  any  longer  on  this  first  point ;  but  I 
hope  that  I  have  said  enough,  not  to  show  that  the 
words  are  true — that  is  a  very  poor  thing  to  do,  if  that 
were  all  that  I  aimed  at— but  to  bring  them  home  to 
some  of  our  hearts  and  consciences.  I  pray  God  to 
impress  the  conviction  that,  although  there  be  in  us  all 
the  voice  of  conscience,  which  all  of  us  more  or  less 
have  tried  at  intervals  to  follow;  yet  in  the  main  it 
abides  for  ever  true — and  it  is  true,  my  dear  brethren, 
about  you — a  Christless  life  is  a  life  under  the  dominion 
of  tyrannous  desires.  Ask  yourself  what  I  cannot  ask 
for  you,  Is  it  I?  My  hand  fumbles  about  the  hinges 
and  handle  of  the  door  of  the  heart.  You  yourself 
must  open  it  and  let  conviction  come  in ! 

Still  further,  the  words  before  us  add  another  touch 
to  this  picture.  They  not  only  represent  the  various 
passionate  desires  as  being  the  real  guides  of  'the 
old  man,'  but  they  give  this  other  characteristic — that 
these  desires  are  in  their  very  nature  the  instruments 
of  deceit  and  lies. 

The  words  of  my  text  are,  perhaps,  rather  enfeebled 
by  the  form  of  rendering  which  our  translators  have 
here,  as  in  many  cases,  thought  proper  to  adopt.  If, 
instead  of  reading  *  corrupt  according  to  the  deceitful 
lusts,'  we  read  'corrupt  according  to  the  desires  of 
deceit,'  we  should  have  got  not  only  the  contrast  between 
the  old  man  and  the  new  man, '  created  in  righteous- 
ness and  holiness  of  truth' — but  we  should  have  had, 
perhaps,  a  clearer  notion  of  the  characteristic  of  these 
lusts,  which  the  Apostle  meant  to  bring  into  promi- 


240    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

nence.  These  desires  are,  as  it  were,  the  tools  and 
instruments  by  which  deceit  betrays  and  mocks  men  ; 
the  weapons  used  by  illusions  and  lies  to  corrupt  and 
mar  the  soul.  They  are  strong,  and  their  nature  is  to 
pursue  after  their  objects  without  regard  to  any  con- 
sequences beyond  their  own  gratification ;  but,  strong 
as  they  are,  they  are  like  the  blinded  Samson,  and  will 
pull  the  house  down  on  themselves  if  they  be  not 
watched.  Their  strength  is  excited  on  false  pretences. 
They  are  stirred  to  grasp  what  is  after  all  a  lie.  They 
are  '  desires  of  deceit.' 

That  just  points  to  the  truth  of  all  such  life  being 
hollow  and  profitless.  If  regard  be  had  to  the  whole 
scope  of  our  nature  and  necessities,  and  to  the  true  aim 
of  life  as  deduced  therefrom,  nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  no  man  will  get  the  satisfaction  that  his 
ruling  passions  promise  him,  by  indulging  them.  It 
is  very  sure  that  the  way  never  to  get  what  you  need 
and  desire  is  always  to  do  what  you  like. 

And  that  for  very  plain  reasons.  Because,  for  one 
thing,  the  object  only  satisfies  for  a  time.  Yesterday's 
food  appeased  our  hunger  for  the  day,  but  we  wake 
hungry  again.  And  the  desires  which  are  not  so  purely 
animal  have  the  same  characteristic  of  being  stilled  for 
the  moment,  and  of  waking  more  ravenous  than  ever. 
•  He  that  drinketh  of  this  water  shall  thirst  again.' 
Because,  further,  the  desire  grows  and  the  object  of  it 
does  not.  The  fierce  longing  increases,  and,  of  course, 
the  power  of  the  thing  that  we  pursue  to  satisfy  it  de- 
creases in  the  same  proportion.  It  is  a  fixed  quantitj- ; 
the  appetite  is  indefinitely  expansible.  And  so,  the 
longer  I  go  on  feeding  my  desire,  the  more  I  long  for 
the  food ;  and  the  more  I  long  for  it,  the  less  taste  it 
has  when  I  get  it.    It  must  be  more  strongly  spiced  to 


V.22]   DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE    241 

titillate  a  jaded  palate.  And  there  soon  conies  to  be  an 
end  of  the  possibilities  in  that  direction.  A  man 
scarcely  tastes  his  brandy,  and  has  little  pleasure  in 
drinking  it,  but  he  cannot  do  without  it,  and  so  he 
gulps  it  down  in  bigger  and  bigger  draughts  till 
delirium  tremens  comes  in  to  finish  all.  Because,  for 
another  thing,  after  all,  these  desires  aie  each  but  a 
fragment  of  one's  whole  nature,  and  when  one  is  satis- 
fied another  is  baying  to  be  fed.  The  grim  brute,  like 
the  watchdog  of  the  old  mythology,  has  three  heads, 
and  each  gaping  for  honey  cakes.  And  if  they  were  all 
gorged,  there  are  other  longings  in  men's  nature  that 
will  not  let  them  rest,  and  for  which  all  the  leeks  and 
onions  of  Egypt  are  not  food.  So  long  as  these  are 
unmet,  you  '  spend  your  money  for  that  which  is  not 
bread,  and  your  labour  for  that  which  satisfieth  not.' 

So  we  may  lay  it  down  as  a  universal  truth,  that 
whoever  takes  it  for  his  law  to  do  as  he  likes  will  not 
for  long  like  what  he  does;  or,  as  George  Herbert 
says, 

•  Shadows  well  mounted,  dreams  in  a  career, 
Embroider'd  lies,  nothing  between  two  dishes — 
These  are  the  pleasures  here.' 

Do  any  of  you  remember  the  mournful  words  with 
which  one  of  our  greatest  modern  w^riters  of  fiction 
closes  his  saddest,  truest  book  :  '  Ah  !  vanitas  vanitatum! 
Which  of  us  is  happy  in  this  world  ?  which  of  us  has 
his  desire?  or,  having  it,  is  satisfied?'  No  wonder  that 
with  such  a  view  of  human  life  as  that  the  next  and 
last  sentence  should  be,  '  Come,  children,  let  us  shut  up 
the  box  and  the  puppets,  for  the  play  is  played  out.' 
Yes!  if  there  be  nothing  more  to  follow  than  the 
desires  which  deceive,  man's  life,  with  all  its  bustle  and 


242    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

emotion,  is  a  subject  for  cynical  and  yet  sad  regard, 
and  all  the  men  and  women  that  toil  and  fret  are 
'  merely  players.' 

Then,  again,  one  more  point  in  this  portraiture  of 
'the  old  man,'  is  that  these  deceiving  desires  corrupt. 
The  language  of  our  text  conveys  a  delicate  shade  of 
meaning  which  is  somewhat  blurred  in  our  version. 
Properly,  it  speaks  of  '  the  old  man  which  is  growing 
corrupt,'  rather  than  '  which  is  corrupt,'  and  expresses 
the  steady  advance  of  that  inward  process  of  decay 
and  deterioration  which  is  ever  the  fate  of  a  life  sub- 
ordinated to  these  desires.  And  this  growing  evil,  or 
rather  inward  eating  corruption  which  disintegrates 
and  destroys  a  soul,  is  contrasted  in  the  subsequent 
verse  with  the  '  new  man  which  is  created  in  righteous- 
ness.' There  is  in  the  one  the  working  of  life,  in  the 
other  the  working  of  death.  The  one  is  formed  and 
fashioned  by  the  loving  hands  and  quickening  breath 
of  God  ;  the  other  is  gradually  and  surely  rotting  away 
by  the  eating  leprosy  of  sin.  For  the  form.er  the  end 
is  eternal  life ;  for  the  latter,  the  second  death. 

And  the  truth  that  underlies  that  awful  representa- 
tion is  the  familiar  one  to  which  I  have  already  referred 
in  another  connection,  that,  by  the  very  laws  of  our 
nature,  by  the  plain  necessities  of  the  case,  all  our 
moral  qualities,  be  they  good  or  bad,  tend  to  increase 
by  exercise.  In  whatever  direction  we  move,  the  rate 
of  progress  tends  to  accelerate  itself.  And  this  is  pre- 
eminently the  case  when  the  motion  is  downwards. 
Every  day  that  a  bad  man  lives  he  is  a  worse  man. 
My  friend !  you  are  on  a  sloping  descent.  Imper- 
ceptibly— because  you  will  not  look  at  the  landmarks 
— but  really,  and  not  so  very  slowly  either ;  convictions 
are  dying  out,  impulses  to  good  are  becoming  feeble, 


V.  22]   DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE    243 

habits  of  neglect  of  conscience  are  becoming  fixed, 
special  forms  of  sin — avarice,  or  pride,  or  Inst — are 
striking  their  claws  deeper  into  your  soul,  and  holding 
their  bleeding  booty  firmer.  In  all  regions  of  life 
exercise  strengthens  capacity.  The  wrestler,  accord- 
ing to  the  old  Greek  parable,  who  began  by  carrying  a 
calf  on  his  shoulders,  got  to  carry  an  ox  by  and  by. 

It  is  a  solemn  thought  this  of  the  steady  continuous 
aggravation  of  sin  in  the  individual  character.  Surely 
nothing  can  be  small  which  goes  to  make  up  that 
rapidly  growing  total.  Beware  of  the  little  beginnings 
which  '  eat  as  doth  a  canker.'  Beware  of  the  slightest 
deflection  from  the  straight  line  of  right.  If  there  be 
tTvo  lines,  one  straight  and  the  other  going  off  at  the 
sharpest  angle,  you  have  only  to  produce  both  far 
enough,  and  there  will  be  room  between  them  for  all 
the  space  that  separates  hell  from  heaven !  Beware  of 
lading  your  souls  with  the  weight  of  small  single  sins. 
We  heap  upon  ourselves,  by  slow,  steady  accretion 
through  a  lifetime,  the  weight  that,  though  it  is 
gathered  by  grains,  crushes  the  soul.  There  is  nothing 
heavier  than  sand.  You  may  lift  it  by  particles.  It 
drifts  in  atoms,  but  heaped  upon  a  man  it  will  break 
his  bones,  and  blown  over  the  land  it  buries  pyramid 
and  sphynx,  the  temples  of  gods  and  the  homes  of  men 
beneath  its  barren  solid  waves.  The  leprosy  gnaws 
the  flesh  off  a  man's  bones,  and  joints  and  limbs  drop 
off — he  is  a  living  death.  So  with  every  soul  that  is 
under  the  dominion  of  these  lying  desires — it  is  slowly 
rotting  away  piecemeal,  '  waxing  corrupt  according  to 
the  lusts  of  deceit.' 

11.  Note  how,  this  being  so,  we  have  here  the  hopeless 
command  to  put  off  the  old  man. 

That  command  *  put  it  off '  is  the  plain  dictate  of  con- 


244    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv, 

science  and  of  common  sense.  But  it  seems  as  hope- 
less as  it  is  imperative.  I  suppose  everybody  feels 
sometimes,  more  or  less  distinctly,  that  they  ought  to 
make  an  effort  and  get  rid  of  these  beggarly  usurpers 
that  tyrannise  over  will,  and  conscience,  and  life. 
Attempts  enough  are  made  to  shake  off  the  yoke.  We 
have  all  tried  some  time  or  other.  Our  days  are  full 
of  foiled  resolutions,  attempts  that  have  broken  down, 
unsuccessful  rebellions,  ending  like  the  struggles  of 
some  snared  wild  creature,  in  -wrapping  the  meshes 
tighter  round  us.  How  many  times,  since  you  were  a 
boy  or  a  girl,  have  you  said — '  Now  I  am  determined 
that  I  will  never  do  that  again.  I  have  flung  away 
opportunities.  I  have  played  the  fool  and  erred  ex- 
ceedingly— but  I  now  turn  over  a  new  leaf ! '  Yes,  and 
you  have  turned  it — and,  if  I  might  go  on  with  the 
metaphor,  the  first  gust  of  passion  or  temptation  has 
blown  the  leaf  back  again,  and  the  old  page  has  been 
spread  before  you  once  more  just  as  it  used  to  be.  The 
history  of  individual  souls  and  the  tragedy  of  the 
world's  history  recurring  in  every  age,  in  which  the 
noblest  beginnings  lead  to  disastrous  ends,  and  each 
new  star  of  promise  that  rises  on  the  horizon  leads 
men  into  quagmires  and  sets  in  blood,  sufficiently  show 
how  futile  the  attempt  in  our  own  strength  to  over- 
come and  expel  the  evils  that  are  rooted  in  our  nature. 
Moralists  may  preach,  'Unless  above  himself  he  can 
erect  himself,  how  mean  a  thing  is  man';  but  all  tbe 
preaching  in  the  world  is  of  no  avail.  The  task  is  an 
impossibility.  The  stream  cannot  rise  above  its  source, 
nor  be  purified  in  its  flow  if  bitter  waters  come  from 
the  fountain.  •  Who  can  bring  a  clean  thing  out  of  an 
unclean?'  There  is  no  power  in  human  nature  to  cast 
off  this  clinging  self.    As  in  the  awful  vision  of  the 


V.  22]  DARK  PICTURE,  BRIGHT  HOPE     245 

poet,  the  serpent  is  grown  into  the  man.  The  will  is 
feeble  for  good,  the  conscience  sits  like  a  discrowned 
king  issuing  empty  mandates,  while  all  his  realm  is  up 
in  rebellion  and  treats  his  proclamations  as  so  much 
waste  paper.  How  can  a  man  re-make  himself?  how 
cast  off  his  own  nature?  The  means  at  his  disposal 
themselves  need  to  be  cleansed,  for  themselves  are 
tainted.  It  is  the  old  story — who  will  keep  the 
keepers? — who  will  heal  the  sick  physicians?  You 
will  sometimes  see  a  wounded  animal  licking  its 
wounds  with  its  own  tongue.  How  much  more  hope- 
less still  is  our  effort  by  our  own  power  to  stanch  and 
heal  the  gashes  which  sin  has  made!  'Put  off  the  old 
man' — yes — and  if  it  but  clung  to  the  limbs  like  the 
hero's  poisoned  vest,  it  might  be  possible.  But  it  is  not 
a  case  of  throwing  aside  clothing,  it  is  stripping  oneself 
of  the  very  skin  and  flesh — and  if  there  is  nothing  more 
to  be  said  than  such  vain  commonplaces  of  impossible 
duty,  then  we  must  needs  abandon  hope,  and  wear  the 
rotting  evil  till  we  die. 

But  that  is  not  all.  '  What  the  law  could  not  do,  in 
that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,'  God  sending  His 
own  Son  did — He  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh.  So  we 
come  to 

III.  The  possibility  of  fulfilling  the  command. 

The  context  tells  us  how  this  is  possible.  The  law, 
the  pattern,  and  the  power  for  complete  victory  over 
the  old  sinful  self,  are  to  be  found,  '  as  the  truth  is — in 
Jesus.'  Union  with  Christ  gives  us  a  real  possession  of 
a  new  principle  of  life,  derived  from  Him,  and  like  His 
own.  That  real,  perfect,  immortal  life,  which  hath  no 
kindred  with  evil,  and  flings  off  pollution  and  decay 
from  its  pure  surface,  will  wrestle  with  and  finally 
overcome  the  living  death  of  obedience  to  the  deceitful 


246    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

lusts.  Our  weakness  will  be  made  vigorous  by  His 
inbreathed  power.  Our  gravitation  to  earth  and  sin 
will  be  overcome  by  the  yearning  of  that  life  to  its 
source.  An  all-constraining  motive  will  be  found  in 
love  to  Him  who  has  given  Himself  for  us.  A  new 
hope  will  spring  as  to  what  may  be  possible  for  us, 
when  we  see  Jesus,  and  in  Him  recognise  the  true 
Man,  whose  image  we  may  bear.  We  shall  die  with 
Him  to  sin,  when,  resting  by  faith  on  Him  who  has 
died  for  sin,  we  are  made  conformable  to  His  death, 
that  we  may  walk  in  newness  of  life.  Faith  in  Jesus 
gives  us  a  share  in  the  working  of  that  mighty  power 
by  which  He  makes  all  things  new.  The  renovation 
blots  out  the  past,  and  changes  the  direction  of  the 
future.  The  fountain  in  our  hearts  sends  forth  bitter 
waters  that  cannot  be  healed.  '  And  the  Lord  showed 
him  a  tree,'  even  that  Cross  whereon  Christ  was  cruci- 
fied for  us, '  which,  when  he  had  cast  into  the  waters, 
the  waters  were  made  sweet.' 

I  remember  a  rough  parable  of  Luther's,  grafted  on 
an  older  legend,  on  this  matter,  which  runs  somewhat 
in  this  fashion :  A  man's  heart  is  like  a  foul  stable. 
Wheelbarrows  and  shovels  are  of  little  use,  except  to 
remove  some  of  the  surface  filth,  and  to  litter  all  the 
passages  in  the  process.  What  is  to  be  done  with  it  ? 
'Turn  the  Elbe  into  it,'  says  he.  The  flood  will  sweep 
away  all  the  pollution.  Not  my  own  efforts,  but  the 
influx  of  that  pardoning,  cleansing  grace  which  is  in 
Christ  will  wash  away  the  accumulations  of  years,  and 
the  ingrained  evil  which  has  stained  every  part  of  my 
being.  We  cannot  cleanse  ourselves,  we  cannot  'put 
off '  this  old  nature  which  has  struck  its  roots  so  deep 
into  our  being ;  but  if  we  turn  to  Him  with  faith  and 
say — Forgive  me,  and  cleanse,  and  strip  from  me  the 


V.22]  THE  NEW  MAN  247 

foul  and  ragged  robe  fit  only  for  the  swine-trouglis  in 
the  far-off  land  of  disobedience,  He  will  receive  us  and 
answer  all  our  desires,  and  cast  around  us  the  pure 
garment  of  His  own  righteousness.  'The  law  of  the 
spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  shall  make  us  free  from 
the  law  of  sin  and  death.' 


THE  NEW  MAN 

'  And  that  ye  put  on  the  new  man,  which  after  God  is  created  in  righteousnesa 
and  true  holiness.'— Eph.  iv.  2d. 

"We  had  occasion  to  remark  in  a  former  sermon  that 
Paul  regards  this  and  the  j)receding  clauses  as  the 
summing  up  of  '  the  truth  in  Jesus ' ;  or,  in  other  words, 
he  considers  the  radical  transformation  and  renovation 
of  the  whole  moral  nature  as  being  the  purpose  of  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ.  To  this  end  they  have 
'heard  Him.'  To  this  end  they  have  'learned  Him.' 
To  this  end  they  have  been  '  taught  in  Him,'  receiving, 
by  union  with  Him,  all  the  various  processes  of  His 
patient  discipline.  This  is  the  inmost  meaning  of  all 
the  lessons  in  that  great  school  in  w^hich  all  Christians 
are  scholars,  and  Christ  is  the  teacher  and  the  theme, 
and  union  to  Him  the  condition  of  entrance,  and  the 
manifold  workings  of  His  providence  and  His  grace  the 
instruments  of  training,  and  heaven  the  home  when 
school  time  is  over — that  we  should  become  new  men 
in  Christ  Jesus. 

This  great  practical  issue  is  set  forth  here  under 
three  aspects — one  negative,  two  positive.  The  nega- 
tive process  is  single  and  simple — '  put  off  the  old  man.' 
The  positive  is  double — a  spiritual  '  renewal '  effected 
in  our  spirits,  in  the  deep  centre  of  our  personal  being, 


~r 


248    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [cn.iv. 

hy  that  Divine  Spirit  who,  dwelling  in  us,  is  '  the  spirit 
of  our  minds ' ;  and  then,  consequent  upon  that  inward 
renewal,  a  renovation  of  life  and  character,  which  is 
described  as  being  the  'putting  on,'  as  if  it  were  a 
garment,  of  'the  new  man,'  created  by  a  divine  act, 
and  consisting  in  moral  and  spiritual  likeness  to  God. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  deal,  except  incidentally,  with 
the  two  former,  but  I  desire  to  consider  the  last  of 
these — the  putting  on  of  the  new  man — a  little  more 
closely,  and  to  try  to  bring  out  the  wealth  and  depth 
of  the  Apostle's  words  in  this  wonderful  text. 

The  ideas  contained  seem  to  me  in  brief  to  be  these — 
the  great  purpose  of  the  Gospel  is  our  moral  renewal ; 
that  moral  renewal  is  a  creation  after  God's  image; 
that  new  creation  has  to  be  put  on  or  appropriated  by 
us ;  the  great  means  of  appropriating  it  is  contact  with 
God's  truth.  Let  us  consider  these  points  in  order. 
-  I.  The  great  purpose  of  the  Gospel  is  our  moral 
renewal;  'the  new  man  .  .  .  created  in  righteousness 
and  .  .  .  holiness.' 

Now,  of  course,  there  are  other  ways  of  stating  the 
end  of  the  Gospel.  This  is  by  no  means  an  exhaustive 
setting  forth  of  its  purpose.  We  may  say  that  Christ 
has  come  in  order  that  men  may  know  God.  We  may 
say  that  He  comes  in  order  that  the  Divine  Love,  which 
ever  delights  to  communicate,  may  bestow  itself,  and 
may  conceive  of  the  whole  majestic  series  of  acts  of 
self-revelation  from  the  beginning  as  being — if  I  may 
so  say — for  the  gratification  of  that  impulse  to  impart 
itself,  which  is  the  characteristic  of  love  in  God  and 
man.  We  may  say  that  the  purpose  of  the  whole  is 
the  deliverance  of  men  from  the  burden  and  guilt  of 
sin.  But  whether  we  speak  of  the  end  of  the  Gospel  as 
the  glory  of  God,  or  the  blessedness  of  man,  or  as  here, 


V.24]  THE  NEW  MAN  249 

as  being  the  moral  perfection  of  the  individual  or  of 
the  race,  they  are  all  but  various  phrases  of  the  one 
complete  truth.  The  Gospel  is  the  consequence  and 
the  manifestation  of  the  love  of  God,  which  delights 
to  be  known  and  possessed  by  loving  souls,  and 
being  known,  changes  them  into  its  own  likeness, 
which  to  know  is  to  be  happy,  which  to  resemble  is 
to  be  pure. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  me  about  this  representa- 
tion of  our  text  is  the  profound  sense  of  human  sinful- 
ness which  underlies  it. 

The  language  is  utterly  unmeaning — or  at  all  events 
grossly  exaggerated — unless  all  have  sinned,  and  the  y- 
nature  which  belongs  to  men  universally,  apart  from 
the  transforming  power  of  Christ's  Spirit,  be  corrupt 
and  evil.  And  that  it  is  so  is  the  constant  view  of 
Scripture.  The  Bible  notion  of  what  men  need  in 
order  to  be  pure  and  good  is  very  different  from  the 
superficial  notions  of  worldly  moralists  and  philan- 
thropists. We  hear  a  great  deal  about 'culture,' as  if 
all  that  were  needed  were  the  training  and  strengthen- 
ing of  the  nature,  as  if  what  was  mainly  needed  was 
the  development  of  the  understanding.  We  hear  about 
*  reformation'  from  some  who  look  rather  deeper  than 
the  superficial  apostles  of  culture.  And  how  singularly 
the  very  word  proclaims  the  insufficiency  of  the  remedy 
which  it  suggests!  *  Re-formation '  affects  form  and 
not  substance.  It  puts  the  old  materials  into  a  new 
shape.  Exactly  so — and  much  good  may  be  expect cid 
from  that  I  They  are  the  old  materials  still,  and  it 
matters  comparatively  little  how  they  are  arranged. 
It  is  not  re-formation,  but  re-novation,  or,  to  go  deeper 
still,  re-generation,  that  the  world  needs ;  not  new 
forms,  but  a  new  life ;  not  the  culture  and  development 


^' 


250    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

of  what  it  has  in  itself,  but  extirpation  of  the  old  by 
the  infusion  of  something  new  and  pure  that  has  no 
taint  of  corruption,  nor  any  contact  with  evil.  '  Verily, 
I  say  unto  you,  ye  must  be  born  again.' 

All  slighter  notions  of  the  need  and  more  superficial 
diagnoses  of  the  disease  lead  to  a  treatment  with 
palliatives  which  never  touch  the  true  seat  of  the  mis- 
chief. The  poison  flowers  may  be  plucked,  but  the 
roots  live  on.  It  is  useless  to  build  dykes  to  keep  out 
the  wild  waters.  Somewhere  or  other  they  will  find  a 
way  through.  The  only  real  cure  is  that  which  only 
the  Creating  hand  can  effect,  who,  by  slow  operation 
of  some  inward  agency,  can  raise  the  level  of  the  low 
lands,  and  lift  them  above  the  threatening  waves. 
What  is  needed  is  a  radical  transformation,  going  down 
to  the  very  roots  of  the  being ;  and  that  necessity  is 
clearly  implied  in  the  language  of  this  text,  which 
declares  that  a  nature  possessing  righteousness  and 
holiness  is  '  a  new  man '  to  be  *  put  on '  as  from  without, 
not  to  be  evolved  as  from  within. 

It  is  to  be  further  noticed  what  the  Apostle  specifies 
as  the  elements,  or  characteristics  of  this  new  nature — 
righteousness  and  holiness. 

The  proclamation  of  a  new  nature  in  Christ  Jesus, 
great  and  precious  truth  as  it  is,  has  often  been  con- 
nected with  teaching  which  has  been  mystical  in  the 
bad  sense  of  that  word,  and  has  been  made  the  stalk- 
ing horse  of  practical  immorality.  But  here  we  have 
it  distinctly  defined  in  what  that  new  nature  consists. 
There  is  no  vague  mystery  about  it,  no  tampering  with 
the  idea  of  personality.  The  people  who  put  on  the 
new  man  are  the  same  people  after  as  before.  The 
newness  consists  in  moral  and  spiritual  characteristics. 
And  these  are  all  summed  up  in  the  two— righteousness 


V.24]  THE  NEW  MAN  251 

and  holiness.  To  which  is  added  in  the  suhstantially 
parallel  passage  in  Colossians,  '  Renewed  in  knowledge 
after  the  image  of  Him  that  created  Him,'  where,  I 
suppose,  we  must  regard  the  'knowledge'  as  mean- 
ing that  personal  knowledge  and  acquaintance 
which  has  its  condition  in  love,  and  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  more  purely  moral  qualities  of  which  our 
text  speaks. 

Is  there,  then,  any  distinction  between  these  two  ? 
I  think  there  is  very  obviously  so.  '  Righteousness  '  is, 
I  suppose,  to  be  understood  here  in  its  narrower  mean- 
ing of  observance  of  what  is  right,  the  squaring  of 
conduct  according  to  a  solemn  sovereign  law  of  duty. 
Substantially  it  is  equivalent  to  the  somewhat 
heathenish  word  'morality,'  and  refers  human  con- 
duct and  character  to  a  law  or  standard.  What,  then, 
is  '  holiness '  ?  It  is  the  same  general  conduct  and 
character,  considered,  however,  under  another  aspect, 
and  in  another  relation.  It  involves  the  reference  of 
life  and  self  to  God,  consecration  to,  and  service  of  Him. 
It  is  not  a  mere  equivalent  of  purity,  but  distinctly 
carries  the  higher  reference.  The  obedience  now  is 
not  to  a  law  but  to  a  Lord.  The  perfection  now  does 
not  consist  in  conformity  to  an  ideal  standard,  but  in 
likeness  and  devotion  to  God.  That  which  I  ought  to 
do  is  that  which  my  Father  in  heaven  wills.  Or,  if  the 
one  word  may  roughly  represent  the  more  secular  word 
'morality,' the  other  may  roughly  represent  the  less 
devout  phrase,  '  practical  religion.' 

These  are  'new,'  as  actually  realised  in  human  nature. 
Paul  thinks  that  we  shall  not  possess  them  except  as  a 
consequence  of  renovation.  But  they  are  not  'new' 
in  the  sense  that  the  contents  of  Christian  morality 
are  different  from  the  contents  of  the  law  written  on 


252    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

men's  hearts.  The  Gospel  proclaims  and  produces  no 
fantastic  ethics  of  its  own.  The  actions  which  it 
stamps  in  its  mint  are  those  which  pass  current  in  all 
lands — not  a  provincial  coinage,  but  recognised  as  true 
in  ring,  and  of  full  weight  everywhere.  Do  not  fancy 
that  Christian  righteousness  is  different  from  ordinary 
'  goodness,'  except  as  being  broader  and  deeper,  more 
thorough-going,  more  imperative.  Divergences  there 
are,  for  our  law  is  more  than  a  republication  of  the 
law  written  on  men's  hearts.  Though  the  one  agrees 
with  the  other,  yet  the  area  which  they  cover  is  not  the 
same.  The  precepts  of  the  one,  like  some  rock-hewn 
inscriptions  by  forgotten  kings,  are  weathered  and  in- 
distinct, often  illegible,  often  misread,  often  neglected. 
The  other  is  written  in  living  characters  in  a  perfect 
life.  It  includes  all  that  the  former  attempts  to 
enjoin,  and  much  more  besides.  It  alters  the  perspec- 
tive, so  to  speak,  of  heathen  morals,  and  brings  into 
prominence  graces  overlooked  or  despised  by  them.  It 
breathes  a  deeper  meaning  and  a  tenderer  beauty  into 
the  words  which  express  human  conceptions  of  virtue, 
but  it  does  take  up  these  into  itself.  And  instead  of 
setting  up  a  '  righteousness '  which  is  peculiar  to  itself, 
and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  world's  morality, 
Christianity  says,  as  Christ  has  taught  us,  '  Except  your 
righteousness  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God.'  The  same  apostle  who  here  declares  that  actual 
righteousness  and  holiness  are  new^  things  on  the  earth, 
allows  full  force  to  whatsoever  weight  may  be  in  the 
heathen  notion  of  '  virtue,'  and  adopts  the  words  and 
ideas  which  he  found  ready  made  to  his  hands,  in  that 
notion — as  fitly  describing  the  Christian  graces  which 
he  enjoined.    Grecian  moralists  supplied  him  with  the 


V.24]  THE  NEW  MAN  253 

names  true,  honest,  just,  and  pure.  His  '  righteousness ' 
accepted  these  as  included  within  its  scope.  And  we 
have  to  remember  that  we  are  not  invested  with  that 
new  nature,  unless  we  are  living  in  the  exercise  of 
these  common  and  familiar  graces  which  the  con- 
sciences and  hearts  of  all  the  world  recognise  for 
•  lovely '  and  '  of  good  report,'  hail  as  '  virtue,'  and 
crown  with  '  praise.' 

So,  then,  let  me  pause  here  for  a  moment  to  urge  you 
to  take  these  thoughts  as  a  very  sharp  and  salutary 
test.  You  call  yourselves  Christian  people.  The  pur- 
pose of  your  Christianity  is  your  growth  and  perfect- 
ing in  simple  purity,  and  devotion  to,  and  dependence 
on,  our  loving  Father.  Our  religion  is  nothing  unless 
it  leads  to  these.  Otherwise  it  is  like  a  plant  that  never 
seeds,  but  may  bear  some  feeble  blossoms  that  drop 
shrunken  to  the  ground  before  they  mature.  To  very 
many  of  us  the  old  solemn  remonstrance  should  come 
with  awakening  force — 'Ye  did  run  well,  what  did 
hinder  you?'  You  have  apprehended  Christ  as  the  re- 
vealer  and  bringer  of  the  great  mercy  of  God,  and 
have  so  been  led  in  some  measure  to  put  your  confid- 
ence in  Him  for  your  salvation  and  deliverance.  But 
have  you  apprehended  Him  as  the  mould  into  which 
your  life  is  to  be  poured,  that  life  having  been  made 
fluent  and  plastic  by  the  warmth  of  His  love  ?  You 
have  apprehended  Him  as  your  refuge  ;  have  you  appre- 
hended Him  as  your  inward  sanctity  ?  You  have  gone 
to  Him  as  the  source  of  salvation  from  the  guilt  and 
penalties  of  sin ;  have  you  gone  to  Him,  and  are  jon 
daily  growing  in  the  conscious  possession  of  Him,  as 
the  means  of  salvation  from  the  corruption  and  evil 
of  sin?  He  comes  to  make  us  good.  What  has  He 
made  you  ?    Anything  different  from  what  you  were 


254    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

twenty  years  ago?  Then,  if  not,  and  in  so  far  as  you 
are  unchanged  and  unbettered,  the  Gospel  is  a  failure 
for  you,  and  you  are  untrue  to  it.  The  great  purpose 
of  all  the  work  of  Christ — His  life,  His  sorrows,  His 
passion,  His  resurrection,  His  glory,  His  continuous 
operation  by  the  Spirit  and  the  word — is  to  make 
new  men  who  shall  be  just  and  devout,  righteous  and 
holy. 

II.  A  second  principle  contained  in  these  words,  is 
that  this  moral  Renewal  is  a  Creation  in  the  image  of 
God. 

The  new  man  is  'created  after  the  image  of  God' — 
that  is,  of  course,  according  to  or  in  the  likeness  of 
God.  There  is  evident  reference  here  to  the  account  of 
man's  creation  in  Genesis,  and  the  idea  is  involved  that 
this  new  man  is  the  restoration  and  completion  of  that 
earlier  likeness,  which,  in  some  sense,  has  faded  out  of 
the  features  and  form  of  our  sinful  souls.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that  there  is  an  image  of  God 
inseparable  from  human  nature,  and  not  effaceable  by 
any  obscuring  or  disturbance  caused  by  sin.  Man's 
likeness  to  God  consists  in  his  being  a  person,  possessed 
of  a  will  and  self-consciousness,  and  that  mysterious 
gift  of  personality  abides  whatever  perishes.  But 
beyond  that  natural  image  of  God,  as  we  may  call  it, 
there  is  something  else  which  fades  wholly  with  the 
first  breath  of  evil,  like  the  reflexion  of  the  sky  on 
some  windless  sea.  The  natural  likeness  remains,  and 
without  it  no  comparison  would  be  possible.  We 
should  not  think  of  saying  that  a  stone  or  an  eagle 
were  unlike  God.  But  while  the  personal  being  makes 
comparison  fitting,  what  makes  the  true  contrast?  In 
what  respect  is  man  unlike  God  ?  In  moral  antagonism. 
What  is  the  true  likeness?     Moral  harmony.     What 


V.  24]  THE  NEW  MAN  255 

separates  men  from  their  Father  in  heaven  ?  Is  it  that 
His  'years  are  throughout  all  generations,'  and  *my 
days  are  as  an  handbreadth' ?  Is  it  that  Ilis  poAver  is 
infinite,  and  mine  all  thwarted  by  other  might  and  ever 
tending  to  weakness  and  extinction  ?  Is  it  that  His 
wisdom,  sun  like,  M'^axes  not  nor  wanes,  and  there  is 
nothing  hid  from  its  beams,  while  my  knowledge,  like 
the  lesser  light,  shines  by  reflected  radiance,  serves  but 
to  make  the  night  visible,  and  is  crescent  and  decaying, 
changeful  and  wandering?  No.  All  such  distinctions 
based  upon  what  people  call  the  sovereign  attributes 
of  God — the  distinctions  of  creator  and  created,  infinite 
and  finite,  omnipotent  and  weak,  eternal  and  transient 
— make  no  real  gulf  between  God  and  man.  If  we  have 
only  to  say,  '  As  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth, 
so  are'  His  *  ways  higher  than'  our  '  ways,'  that  differ- 
ence is  not  unlikeness,  and  establishes  no  separation ; 
for  low  and  flat  though  the  dull  earth  be,  does  not 
heaven  bend  down  round  it,  and  send  rain  and  sun, 
dew  and  blessing  ?  But  it  is  because  *  your  ways  are 
not  as  my  ways ' — because  there  is  actual  opposition, 
because  the  directions  are  different — that  there  is  un- 
likeness. The  image  of  God  lies  not  only  in  that  per- 
sonality which  the  '  Father  of  Lies'  too  possesses,  but 
in  '  righteousness  and  holiness.' 

But  besides  this  reference  to  the  original  creation  of 
man,  there  is  another  reason  for  the  repiesentation  of 
the  new  nature  as  being  a  work  of  divine  creative 
power.  It  is  in  order  to  give  the  most  emphatic  expres- 
sion possible  to  the  truth  that  we  do  not  make  our 
righteousness  for  ourselves,  but  receive  it  as  from  Him. 
The  new  man  is  not  our  work,  it  is  God's  creation.  As 
at  the  beginning,  the  first  human  life  is  represented  as 
not  originated  in  the  line  of  natural  cause  and  effect, 


256  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.  iv. 

but  as  a  new  and  supernatural  commencement,  so  in 
every  Christian  soul  the  life  which  is  derived  from  God, 
and  will  unfold  itself  in  His  likeness,  comes  from  His 
own  breath  inbreathed  into  the  nostrils.  It  too  is  out 
of  the  line  of  natural  causes.  It  too  is  a  direct  gift 
from  God.  It  too  is  a  true  supernatural  being — a  real 
and  new  creation. 

May  I  venture  a  step  further  ?  '  The  new  man '  is 
spoken  of  here  as  if  it  had  existence  ere  we  'put  it  on.' 
I  do  not  press  that,  as  if  it  necessarily  involved  the 
idea  which  I  am  going  to  suggest,  for  the  peculiar  form 
of  expression  is  probably  only  due  to  the  exigencies  of 
the  metaphor.  Still  it  may  not  be  altogether  foreign 
to  the  whole  scope  of  the  passage,  if  I  remind  you  that 
the  new  man,  the  true  likeness  of  God,  has,  indeed,  a 
real  existence  apart  from  our  assumption  of  it.  Of 
course,  the  righteousness  and  holiness  which  make  that 
new  nature  in  me  have  no  being  till  they  become  mine. 
But  we  believe  that  the  righteousness  and  holiness 
which  we  make  ours  come  from  another,  who  bestows 
them  on  us.  '  The  new^  man '  is  not  a  mere  ideal,  but 
has  a  historical  and  a  present  existence.  The  ideal  has 
lived  and  lives,  is  a  human  person,  even  Jesus  Christ 
the  express  image  of  the  Father,  who  is  the  beginning 
of  the  new  creation,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us 
wisdom  and  righteousness.  That  fair  vision  of  a 
humanity  detached  from  all  consequences  of  sin, 
renewed  in  perfect  beauty,  stainless  and  Godlike,  is  no 
unsubstantial  dream,  but  a  simple  fact.  He  ever  liveth. 
His  word  to  us  is,  '  I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me — white 
raiment.'  And  a  full  parallel  to  the  words  of  our  text, 
which  bid  us  '  put  on  the  new  man,  created  after  God 
in  righteousness  and  holiness,'  is  found  in  the  other 
words  of  the  same  Apostle — 'Let  us  cast  off  the  works 


V.24]  THE  NEW  MAN  257 

of  darkness,  and  let  us  put  on  the  armour  of  light.  Put 
ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.' 

In  accordance  with  this — 

III.  It  is  further  to  be  noticed  that  this  new  creation 
has  to  be  put  on  and  appropriated  by  us. 

The  same  idea  which,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  is 
conveyed  by  the  image  of  a  new  creation,  is  reiterated 
in  this  metaphor  of  putting  on  the  new  nature,  as  if  it 
were  a  garment.  Our  task  is  not  to  weave  it,  but  to 
wear  it.     It  is  made  and  ready. 

And  that  process  of  assumption  or  putting  on  has 
two  parts.  We  are  clothed  upon  with  Christ  in  a 
double  way,  or  rather  in  a  double  sense.  We  are 
'  found  in  Him  not  having  our  own  righteousness,'  but 
invested  with  His  for  our  pardon  and  acceptance.  We 
are  clothed  w^ith  His  righteousness  for  our  purifying 
and  sanctifying. 

Both  are  the  conditions  of  our  being  like  God.  Both 
are  the  gifts  of  God.  The  one,  however,  is  an  act ;  the 
other  a  process.  Both  are  received.  The  one  is  received 
on  condition  of  simple  faith;  the  other  is  received  by 
the  medium  of  faithful  effort.  Both  are  included  in 
the  wide  conception  of  salvation,  but  the  law  for  the 
one  is  *  Not  by  works  of  righteousness  which  we  have 
done,  but  by  His  mercy  He  saved  us';  and  the  law  for 
the  other  is — 'Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling.'  Both  come  from  Christ,  but  for  the 
one  we  have  the  invitation, '  Buy  of  Me  white  raiment 
that  thou  mayest  be  clothed ' ;  and  for  the  other  we 
have  the  command, '  Put  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
make  not  provision  for  the  flesh.'  There  is  the  assump- 
tion of  His  righteousness  which  makes  a  man  a  Chris- 
tian, and  has  for  its  condition  simple  faith.  There  is 
the  assumption  of  His  righteousness  sanctifying  and 


258    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

transforming  us  which  follows  in  a  Christian  course,  aa 
its  indispensable  accompaniment  and  characteristic, 
and  that  is  realised  by  daily  and  continuous  effort. 

And  one  word  about  the  manner,  the  effort  as  set 
forth  here ;  twofold,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out — a 
negative  and  positive.  We  are  not  concerned  here  with 
the  relations  of  these  amongst  themselves,  but  I  may 
remark  that  there  is  no  growth  in  holiness  possible 
without  the  constant  accompanying  process  of  excision 
and  crucifixion  of  the  old.  If  you  want  to  grow  purer 
and  liker  Christ,  you  must  slay  yourselves.  You  can- 
not gird  on  '  righteousness '  above  the  old  self,  as  some 
beggar  might  buckle  to  himself  royal  velvet  with  its 
ermine  over  his  filthy  tatters.  There  must  be  a  putting 
off  in  order  to  and  accompanying  the  putting  on.  Strip 
yourselves  of  yourselves,  and  then  you  'shall  not  be 
found  naked,'  but  clothed  with  the  garments  of  salva- 
tion, as  the  bride  with  the  robe  which  is  the  token  of 
the  bridegroom's  love,  and  the  pledge  of  her  espousals 
to  him. 

And  let  nobody  wonder  that  the  Apostle  here  com- 
mands us,  as  by  our  own  efforts,  to  put  on  and  make 
ours  what  is  in  many  other  places  of  Scripture  treated 
as  God's  gift.  These  earnest  exhortations  are  perfectly 
consistent  with  the  belief  that  all  comes  from  God. 
Our  faithful  adherence  to  our  Lord  and  Master,  our 
honest  efforts  in  His  strength  to  secure  more  and  more 
of  His  likeness,  determine  the  extent  to  which  we  shall 
possess  that  likeness.  The  new  nature  is  God's  gift, 
and  it  is  given  to  us  according  to  His  own  fulness 
indeed,  but  also  according  to  the  measure  of  our  faith. 
Blessed  be  His  name !  we  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
accept  His  gift.  The  garment  with  which  He  clothes 
our  nakedness  and  hides  our  filth  is  woven  in  no  earthly 


V.  24]  THE  NEW  MAN  259 

looms.  As  with  the  first  sinful  pair,  so  with  all  their 
children  since,  *  the  Lord  God  made  them  '  the  covering 
which  they  cannot  make  for  themselves.  But  we  have 
to  accept  it,  and  we  have  by  daily  toil,  all  our  lives 
long,  to  gather  it  more  and  more  closely  around  us,  to 
wrap  ourselves  more  and  more  completely  in  its  ample 
folds.  We  have  by  effort  and  longing,  by  self-abnega- 
tion and  aspiration,  by  prayer  and  work,  by  communion 
and  service,  to  increase  our  possession  of  that  likeness 
to  God  which  lives  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  from  Him  is 
stamped  ever  more  and  more  deeply  on  the  heart.  For 
the  strengthening  of  our  confidence  and  our  gratitude, 
we  have  to  remember  with  lowly  trust  that  it  is  true 
of  us,  '  If  any  man  be  in  Christ  he  is  a  new  creature.' 
For  the  quickening  of  our  energy  and  faithful  efforts  we 
have  to  give  heed  to  the  command,  and  fulfil  it  in  our- 
selves— '  Be  ye  renewed  in  the  Spirit  of  your  minds,  and 
put  on  the  new  man.' 

IV.  And,  finally,  the  text  contains  the  principle  that 
the  means  of  appropriating  this  new  nature  is  contact 
with  the  truth.  ^ 

If  you  will  look  at  the  margins  of  some  Bibles  you 
will  see  that  our  translators  have  placed  there  a  render- 
ing, which,  as  is  not  unfrequently  the  case,  is  decidedly 
better  than  that  adopted  by  them  in  the  text.  Instead 
of  '  true  holiness,'  the  literal  rendering  is  '  holiness  of 
truth ' — and  the  Apostle's  purpose  in  the  expression  is 
not  to  particularise  the  quality,  but  the  origin  of  the 
'holiness.'  It  is  *  of  truth,'  that  is,  produced  by  the 
holiness  which  flows  from  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  of 
which  he  has  been  speaking  a  moment  before. 

And  we  come,  therefore,  to  this  practical  conclusion, 
that  whilst  the  agent  of  renovation  is  the  Divine  Spirit, 
and  the  condition   of   renovation  is    our  cleaving  to 


260    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

Christ,  the  medium  of  renovation  and  the  weapon 
which  transforming  grace  employs  is  '  the  word  of 
the  truth  of  the  Gospel,'  whereby  we  are  sanctified. 
There  we  get  the  law,  and  there  we  get  the  motive  and 
the  impulse.  There  we  get  the  encouragement  and  the 
hope.  In  it,  in  the  grand  simple  message — *  God  was  in 
Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,  not  imput- 
ing their  trespasses  unto  them,'  lie  the  germs  of  all 
moral  progress.  And  in  proportion  as  we  believe  that 
— not  with  the  cold  belief  of  our  understandings,  but 
with  the  loving  affiance  of  our  hearts  and  our  whole 
spiritual  being — in  proportion  as  we  believe  that,  in 
that  proportion  shall  we  grow  in  'knowledge,'  shall 
we  grow  in  'righteousness,'  in  the  'image  of  Him  that 
created  us.'  The  Gospel  is  the  great  means  of  this 
change,  because  it  is  the  great  means  by  which  He  who 
works  the  change  comes  near  to  our  understandings 
and  our  hearts. 

So  let  us  learn  how  impossible  are  righteousness  and 
holiness,  morality  and  religion  in  men,  unless  they  flow 
from  this  source.  It  is  the  truth  that  sanctifies.  It  is 
the  Spirit  who  wields  that  truth  who  sanctifies.  It  is 
Christ  who  sends  the  Spirit  who  sanctifies.  But, 
brethren,  beyond  the  range  of  this  light  is  only  dark- 
ness, and  that  nature  which  is  not  cleansed  by  His 
priestly  hand  laid  upon  it  remains  leprous,  and  he  who 
is  clothed  with  any  other  garment  than  His  righteous- 
ness will  find  '  the  covering  narrower  than  that  he  can 
wrap  himself  in  it.'  And  let  us  learn,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  incompleteness  and  monstrosity  of  a  pro- 
fessed belief  in  '  the  truth  '  which  does  not  produce  this 
righteousness  and  holiness.  It  may  be  real — God  forbid 
that  we  should  step  into  His  place  and  assume  His 
office  of  discerning  the  thoughts  of  the  heart,  and  the 


T.24]  THE  NEW  MAN  261 

genuineness  of  Christian  professions !  But,  at  any 
rate,  it  is  no  exaggeration  nor  presumption  to  say  that 
a  professed  faith  which  is  not  making  us  daily  better, 
gentler,  simpler,  purer,  more  truthful,  more  tender, 
more  brave,  more  self-oblivious,  more  loving,  more 
strong — more  like  Christ — is  wofully  deficient  either  in 
reality  or  in  power — is,  if  genuine,  ready  to  perish — if 
lit  at  all,  smouldering  to  extinction.  Christian  men 
and  women !  is  '  the  truth '  moulding  you  into  Christ's 
likeness?  If  not,  see  to  it  whether  it  be  the  truth 
which  you  are  holding,  and  whether  you  are  holding 
the  truth  or  have  unconsciously  let  it  slip  from  a  grasp 
numbed  by  the  freezing  coldness  of  the  world. 

And  for  us  all,  let  us  see  that  we  lay  to  heart  the 
large  truths  of  this  text,  and  give  them  that  personal 
bearing  without  which  they  are  of  no  avail.  /  need 
renovation  in  my  inmost  nature.  Nothing  can  renew 
my  soul  but  the  power  of  Christ,  who  is  my  life.  /  am 
naked  and  foul.  Nothing  can  cleanse  and  clothe  m,e  but 
lie.  The  blessed  truth  which  reveals  Him  calls  for  7ny 
individual  faith.  And  if  /  put  my  confidence  in  that 
Lord,  He  will  dwell  in  Tny  inmost  spirit,  and  so  sway 
my  affections  and  mould  my  will  that  /  shall  be  trans- 
formed unto  His  perfect  likeness.  He  begins  with  each 
one  of  us  by  bringing  the  best  robe  to  cast  over  the 
rags  of  the  returning  prodigal.  He  ends  not  with  any 
who  trust  Him,  until  they  stand  amid  the  hosts  of  the 
heavens  who  follow  Him,  clothed  with  fine  linen  clean 
and  white,  which  is  the  righteousness  of  His  Holy 
ones. 


GRIEVING  THE  SPIRIT 

'Grieve  not.  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  whereby  ye  are  sealed  unto  the  day  of 
redemption.'— Eph.  iv.  30. 

The  miracle  of  Christianity  is  the  Incarnation.  It  is 
not  a  link  in  a  chain,  but  a  new  beginning,  the  entrance 
into  the  cosmic  order  of  a  Divine  Power.  The  sequel 
of  Bethlehem  and  Calvary  and  Olivet  is  the  upper 
room  and  the  Pentecost.  There  is  the  issue  of  the 
whole  mission  and  work  of  Christ — the  planting  in  tlie 
heart  of  humanity  of  a  new  and  divine  life.  All 
Christendom  is  professing  to  commemorate  that  fact 
to-day,^  but  a  large  portion  of  us  forget  that  it  was 
but  a  transient  sign  of  a  perpetual  reality.  The  rush- 
ing mighty  wind  has  died  down  into  a  calm ;  the  fiery 
tongues  have  ceased  to  flicker  on  the  disciples'  heads, 
but  the  miracle,  which  is  permanent,  and  is  being 
repeated  from  day  to  day,  in  the  experience  of  every 
believing  soul,  is  the  inrush  of  the  very  breath  of  God 
into  their  lives,  and  the  plunging  of  them  into  a  fiery 
baptism  which  melts  their  coldness  and  refines  away 
their  dross.  Now,  my  text  brings  before  us  some  very 
remarkable  thoughts  as  to  the  permanent  working  of 
the  Divine  Spirit  upon  Christian  souls,  and  upon  this 
it  bases  a  very  tender  and  persuasive  exhortation  to 
conduct.  And  I  desire  simply  to  try  to  bring  out  the 
fourfold  aspect  in  these  words.  There  is,  first,  a 
wondrous  revelation ;  second,  a  plain  lesson  as  to  what 
that  Divine  Spirit  chiefly  does ;  third,  a  solemn  warn- 
ing as  to  man's  power  and  freedom  to  thwart  it; 
and,  lastly,  a  tender  motive  for  conduct.     '  Grieve  not 

*  Preached  on  Whitsunday, 
Mt 


V.30]  GRIEVING  THE  SPIRIT  263 

the  Holy  Spirit,  whereby  ye  are  sealed  unto  the  day 
of  redemption.' 

Now  let  us  look  briefly  at  these  four  thoughts : 
Here  we  have — 

I.  A  wonderful  revelation. 

Wonderful  to  all,  startling  to  some.  If  you  can 
speak  of  grief,  you  must  be  speaking  of  a  person.  An 
influence  cannot  be  sorry,  whatever  may  happen  to  it. 
And  that  word  of  my  text  is  no  mere  violent  metaphor 
or  exaggeratedly  strong  way  of  suggesting  a  motive, 
but  it  keeps  rigidly  within  the  New  Testament  limits, 
in  reference  to  that  Divine  Spirit,  when  to  Him  it 
attributes  this  personal  emotion  of  sorrow  with  its 
correlation  of  possible  joy. 

Now,  I  do  not  need  to  dwell  upon  the  thought 
here,  but  I  do  desire  to  emphasise  it,  especially 
in  view  of  the  strangely  hazy  and  defective  concep- 
tions which  so  many  Christian  people  have  upon 
this  matter.  And  I  desire  to  remind  you  that  the 
implied  assumption  of  a  personal  Spirit,  capable  of 
being  '  grieved,'  which  is  in  this  text,  is  in  accordance 
with  all  the  rest  of  the  New  Testament  teaching. 

What  did  Jesus  Christ  mean  when  He  spoke  of 
one  who  '  will  guide  you  into  all  truth ' ;  of  one  who 
'  whatsoever  He  shall  hear,  those  things  shall  He 
speak '  ?  What  does  the  book  of  the  Acts  mean  when 
it  says  that  the  Spirit  said  to  the  believers  in  Antioch, 
•  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for  the  work  where- 
unto  I  have  called  them '  ?  What  did  Paul  mean  when 
he  said, '  In  every  city  the  Holy  Ghost  testifieth  that 
bonds  and  afflictions  await  me'?  What  does  the 
minister  officiating  in  baptism  mean  when  he  says, 
'I  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost'?     That  form  presents, 


264    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

according  to  many  interpretations,  a  Divine  Person, 
a  Man,  and  an  Influence.  Why  are  these  bracketed 
together?  And  what  do  we  mean  when,  at  the  end 
of  every  Christian  service,  we  invoke  'The  grace  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God  the  Father, 
and  the  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Spirit'?  A  Man,  and 
God,  and  an  Influence — is  that  the  interpretation?  You 
cannot  get  rid  from  the  New  Testament  teaching, 
whether  you  accept  it  or  not — you  cannot  eliminate 
from  it  this,  that  the  divine  causality  of  our  salvation 
is  threefold  and  one,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

Now,  brethren,  I  do  not  think  I  am  exaggerating 
when  I  say  that  practically  the  average  orthodox 
believer  believes  in  a  duality,  and  not  a  Trinity, 
in  the  divine  nature.  I  do  not  care  about  the 
scholastic  words,  but  what  I  would  insist  upon  is  that 
the  course  of  Christian  thinking  has  been  roughly  this. 
First  of  all,  in  the  early  Church,  the  question  of  the 
Divine  nature  came  into  play,  mainly  in  reference  to 
the  relation  of  the  Eternal  Word  to  the  Eternal 
Father,  and  of  the  Incarnation  to  both.  And  then, 
when  that  was  roughly  settled,  there  came  down 
through  many  ages,  and  there  still  subsists,  the 
endeavour  to  cast  into  complete  and  intelligible  forms 
the  doctrine,  if  I  must  use  the  word,  of  Christ's  nature 
and  work.  And  now,  as  I  believe,  to  a  very  large 
extent,  the  foremost  and  best  thinking  of  the  Christian 
Church  is  being  occupied  with  that  last  problem,  the 
nature  and  work  of  that  Divine  Spirit.  I  believe  that 
we  stand  on  the  verge  of  a  far  clearer  perception  of, 
and  of  a  far  more  fervent  and  realising  faith  in,  the 
Spirit  of  God,  than  ever  the  Churches  have  seen  be- 
fore.    And   I  pray  you  to  remember  that  however 


V.30]  GRIEVING  THE  SPIRIT  265 

much  your  Christian  thought  and  Christian  faith 
may  be  centred  upon,  and  may  be  drawing  its  nourish- 
ment and  its  joy  from,  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  who 
died  on  the  Cross  for  our  salvation,  and  lives  to  be 
our  King  and  Defender,  there  is  a  gap — not  only  in 
your  Christian  Creed,  but  also  in  your  Christian  ex- 
periences and  joys  and  power,  unless  you  have  risen 
to  this  thought,  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  not  only  an 
influence,  a  wind,  a  fire,  an  oil,  a  dove,  a  dew,  but  a 
Divine  Person.  We  have  to  go  back  to  the  old  creed 
— 'I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty  .  .  .  and  in 
Jesus  Christ  His  only  Son  our  Lord  ...  I  believe  in 
the  Holy  Ghost.' 

But  further,  this  same  revelation  carries  with  it 
another,  and  to  some  of  us  a  startling  thought. 
'Grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit':  that  Divine  Person  is 
capable  of  grief.  I  do  not  believe  that  is  rhetorical 
exaggeration.  Of  course  I  know  that  we  should  think 
of  God  as  the  ever-blessed  God,  but  we  also  in  these 
last  days  begin  to  think  more  boldly,  and  I  believe 
more  truly,  that  if  man  is  in  the  image  of  God,  and 
there  is  a  divine  element  in  humanity,  there  must  be 
a  human  element  in  divinity.  And  though  I  know 
that  it  is  perilous  to  make  affirmations  about  a  matter 
so  far  beyond  our  possibility  of  verification  by  ex- 
perience, I  venture  to  think  that  perhaps  the  doctrine 
that  God  is  lifted  up  high  above  all  human  weaknesses 
and  emotions  does  not  mean  that  there  can  be  no 
shadow  cast  on  the  divine  blessedness  by  the  dark 
substance  of  human  sin.  I  do  not  venture  to  assert: 
I  only  suggest ;  and  this  I  know,  that  He  who  said  to 
us,  '  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father,*  had 
His  eyes  filled  with  tears,  even  in  His  hour  of  triumph, 
as  He  looked  across  the  valley  and  saw  the  city  spark- 


266    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  iv. 

ling  in  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun.  May  we  venture 
to  see  there  an  unveiling  of  the  divine  heart?  Love 
has  an  infinite  capacity  of  sorrow  as  of  joy.  But  I 
leave  these  perhaps  too  presumptuous  and  lofty 
thoughts,  to  turn  to  the  other  points  involved  in  the 
words  before  us. 

I  said,  in  the  second  place,  there  was — 

11.  A.  plain  lesson  here,  as  to  the  great  purpose  for 
Avhich  the  Divine  Spirit  has  been  lodged  in  the  heart 
of  humanity. 

I  find  that  in  the  two  words  of  my  text, '  the  Holy 
Spirit,'  and  'ye  were  thereby  sealed  unto  the  day  of 
redemption.'  If  the  central  characteristic  which  it 
imports  us  to  know  and  to  keep  in  mind  is  that  implied 
by  the  name,  '  the  Holy  Spirit,'  then,  of  course,  the 
great  work  that  He  has  to  perform  upon  earth  is  to 
make  men  like  Himself.  And  that  is  further  con- 
firmed by  the  emblem  of  the  seal  which  is  here ;  for 
the  seal  comes  in  contact  with  the  thing  sealed,  and 
leaves  the  impression  of  its  own  likeness  there.  And 
whatever  else — and  there  is  a  great  deal  else  that  I 
cannot  touch  now — may  be  included  in  that  great 
thought  of  the  sealing  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  these 
things  are  inseparably  connected  with,  and  suggested 
by  it,  viz.  the  actual  contact  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
with  our  spirits,  which  is  expressed,  as  you  may 
remember,  in  the  other  metaphors  of  being  baptized  in 
and  anointed  with,  and  yet  more  important,  the  result 
purposed  by  that  contact  being  mainly  to  make  us  holy. 

Now,  I  pray  you  to  think  of  how  different  that  is 
from  all  other  notions  of  inspiration  that  the  world 
has  ever  known,  and  how  different  it  is  from  a  great 
many  ideas  that  have  had  influence  within  the  Chris- 
tian Church.    People  say  there  are  not  any  miracles 


V.30]  GRIEVING  THE  SPIRIT  2G7 

now,  and  say  we  are  worse  off  than  when  there  used 
to  be.  That  Divine  Spirit  does  not  come  to  give  gifts 
of  healing,  interpretations  of  tongues,  and  all  the  other 
abnormal  and  temporary  results  which  attended  the 
first  manifestations.  These,  when  they  were  given, 
were  but  means  to  an  end,  and  the  end  subsists  whilst 
the  means  are  swept  away.  It  is  better  to  be  made 
good  than  to  be  filled  with  all  manner  of  miraculous 
power.  '  In  this  rejoice,  not  that  the  spirits  are  subject 
to  you,  but  rather  rejoice  because  your  names  are 
written  in  heaven.'  All  the  rest  is  transient.  It  is 
gone  ;  let  it  go,  we  are  not  a  bit  the  poorer  for  want  of 
it.  This  remains — not  tongues,  nor  gifts  of  healing,  nor 
any  other  of  these  miraculous  and  extraordinary  and 
external  powers — but  the  continual  oj)eration  of  a 
divine  influence,  moulding  men  into  its  own  likeness. 

Christianity  is  intensely  ethical,  and  it  sets  forth,  as 
the  ultimate  result  of  all  its  machinery,  changing  men 
into  the  likeness  of  God.  Holiness  is  that  for  which 
Christ  died,  that  for  which  the  Divine  Spirit  works. 
Unless  we  Christian  people  recognise  the  true  per- 
spective of  the  Spirit's  gifts,  and  put  at  the  base  the 
extraordinary,  and  higher  than  these,  but  still  sub- 
ordinate, the  intellectual,  and  on  top  of  all  the 
spiritual  and  moral,  we  do  not  understand  the  meaning 
of  the  central  gift  and  possible  blessing  of  Chris- 
tianity, to  make  us  holy,  or,  if  you  do  not  like  the 
theological  word,  let  us  put  it  into  still  plainer  and 
more  modern  English,  to  make  you  and  me  good  men 
and  women,  like  God.  That  is  the  mightiest  work  of 
that  Divine  Spirit. 

We  have  here — 

III.  A  plain  warning  as  to  the  possibility  of  thwart- 
ing these  influences. 


268    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.iv. 

Nothing  here  about  irresistible  grace ;  nothing  here 
about  a  power  that  lays  hold  upon  a  man,  and  makes 
him  good,  he  lying  passive  in  its  hands  like  clay  in  the 
hands  of  the  potter !  You  will  not  be  made  holy  with- 
out the  Divine  Spirit,  but  you  will  not  be  made  holy  with- 
out your  working  along  with  it.  There  is  a  possibility 
of  resisting,  and  there  is  a  possibility  of  co-operating. 
Man  is  left  free.  God  does  not  lay  hold  of  any  one 
by  the  hair  of  his  head,  and  drag  him  into  paths  of 
righteousness  whether  he  will  or  no.  But  whilst  there 
is  the  necessity  for  co-operation,  which  involves  the 
possibility  of  resistance,  we  must  also  remember  that 
that  new  life  which  comes  into  a  man,  and  moulds  hia 
will  as  well  as  the  rest  of  his  nature,  is  itself  the  gift 
of  God.  We  do  not  get  into  a  contradiction  when  we 
thus  speak,  we  only  touch  the  edge  of  a  great  ocean 
in  which  our  plummets  can  find  no  bottom.  The  same 
unravellable  knot  as  to  the  co-operation  of  the  divine 
and  the  creatural  is  found  in  the  natural  world,  as  in 
the  experiences  of  the  Christian  soul.  You  have  to 
work,  and  your  work  largely  consists  in  yielding  your- 
selves to  the  work  of  God  upon  you.  *  Work  out  your 
own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling,  for  it  is  God 
that  worketh  in  you.*  Brethren!  If  you  and  I  are 
Christian  people,  we  have  put  into  our  hearts  and 
spirits  the  talent.  It  depends  on  us  whether  we  wrap 
it  in  a  napkin,  and  stow  it  away  underground  some- 
where, or  whether  we  use  it,  and  fructify  and  increase 
it.  If  you  wrap  it  in  a  napkin  and  put  it  away  under- 
ground, when  you  come  to  take  it  out,  and  want  to 
say, '  Lo  !  there  Thou  hast  that  is  Thine,'  you  will  find 
that  it  was  not  solid  gold,  which  could  not  rust  or 
diminish,  but  that  it  has  been  like  some  volatile 
essence,  put  away  in  an  unventilated  place,  and  im- 


V.30]  GRIEVING  THE  SPIRIT  269 

perfectly  secured :  the  napkin  is  there,  but  the  talent 
has  vanished.  We  have  to  work  with  God,  and  we 
can  resist.  Ay,  and  there  is  a  deeper  and  a  sadder 
word  than  that  applied  by  the  same  Apostle  in  another 
letter  to  the  same  subject.  We  can  'quench'  the 
light  and  extinguish  the  fire. 

What  extinguishes  it?  Look  at  the  catalogue  of 
sins  that  lie  side  by  side  with  this  exhortation  of  my 
text !  They  are  all  small  matters — bitterness,  wrath, 
anger,  clamour,  evil-speaking,  malice,  stealing,  lying, 
and  the  like  ;  very  '  homely '  transgressions,  if  I  may 
so  say.  Yes,  and  if  you  pile  enough  of  them  upon 
the  spark  that  is  in  your  hearts  you  will  smother  it 
out.  Sin,  the  wrenching  of  myself  away  from  the 
influences,  not  attending  to  the  whispers  and  sugges- 
tions, being  blind  to  the  teaching  of  the  Spirit  through 
the  Word  and  through  Providence :  these  are  the 
things  that '  grieve  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.' 

And  so,  lastly,  we  have  here — 

IV.  A  Tender  Motive,  a  dissuasive  from  sin,  a  per- 
suasive to  yielding  and  to  righteousness. 

Many  a  man  has  been  kept  from  doing  wrong  things 
by  thinking  of  a  sad  pale  face  sitting  at  home  wait- 
ing for  him.  Many  a  boy  has  been  kept  from  youth- 
ful transgressions  which  war  against  his  soul  here,  on 
the  streets  of  Manchester,  full  as  they  are  of  tempta- 
tions, by  thinking  that  it  would  grieve  the  poor  old 
mother  in  her  cottage,  away  down  in  the  country 
somewhere.  We  can  bring  that  same  motive  to  bear, 
with  infinitely  increased  force,  in  regard  to  our  con- 
duct as  Christian  people.  '  Grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit 
of  God.'  A  father  feels  a  pang  if  he  sees  that  his 
child  makes  no  account  of  some  precious  gift  that 
he  has  bestowed  upon  him,  and  leaves  it  lying  about 


270    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.v. 

anywhere.  A  loving  friend,  standing  on  the  margin 
of  the  stream,  and  calling  to  his  friends  in  a  boat 
when  they  are  drifting  to  the  rapids,  turns  away  sad 
if  they  do  not  attend  to  his  voice.  That  Divine  Spirit 
pleads  with  us,  and  proffers  its  gifts  to  us,  and  turns 
away — I  was  going  to  use  too  strong  a  word,  perhaps 
— sick  at  heart,  not  because  of  wounded  authority, 
but  because  of  wounded  love  and  baffled  desire  to 
help,  when  we,  in  spite  of  It,  will  take  our  own  way, 
neglect  the  call  that  warns  us  of  our  peril,  and  leave 
untouched  the  gifts  that  would  have  made  us  safe. 

Dear  brethren,  surely  such  a  dissuasive  from  evil,  and 
such  a  persuasive  to  good,  is  mightier  than  all  abstrac- 
tions about  duty  and  conscience  and  right,  and  the 
like.  'Do  it  rightly,'  says  Paul,  'and  you  will  please 
Him  that  hath  called  you ' ;  leave  the  evil  thing  undone, 
•and  my  heart  shall  be  glad,  even  mine.'  You  and  I 
can  grieve  the  Christ  whose  Spirit  is  given  to  us. 
You  and  I  can  add  something  to  'the  joy  of  our 
Lord.' 

GOD'S  IMITATORS 

*  Be  ye  therefore  followers  of  God,  as  dear  children.'— Eph.  v.  L 

The  Revised  Version  gives  a  more  literal  and  more 
energetic  rendering  of  this  verse  by  reading,  '  Be  ye, 
therefore,  imitators  of  God,  as  beloved  children.'  It  is 
the  only  place  in  the  Bible  where  that  bold  w"ord 
•imitate'  is  applied  to  the  Christian  relation  to  God. 
But,  though  the  expression  is  unique,  the  idea  underlies 
the  whole  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Christian  character  and  conduct.  To  be  like 
God,  and  to  set  ourselves  to  resemble  Him,  is  the  sum 
of  all  duty ;  and  in  the  measure  in  which  we  approxi- 


V.  1]  GOD'S  IMITATORS  271 

mate  thereto,  we  come  to  perfection.  So,  then,  there 
are  here  just  two  points  that  I  would  briefly  touch 
upon  now — the  one  is  the  sublime  precept  of  the  text, 
and  the  other  the  all-sufficient  motive  enforcing  it. 
•Be  ye  imitators  of  God  as' — because  you  are,  and 
know  yourselves  to  be — *  beloved  children,'  and  it 
therefore  behoves  you  to  be  like  your  Father. 

I.  First,  then,  this  sublime  precept. 

Now  notice  that,  broad  as  this  precept  is,  and  all- 
inclusive  of  every  kind  of  excellence  and  duty  as  it  may 
be,  the  Apostle  has  a  very  definite  and  specific  meaning 
in  it.  There  is  one  feature,  and  only  one,  in  which, 
accurately  speaking,  a  man  may  be  like  God.  Our 
limited  knowledge  can  never  be  like  the  ungrowing 
perfect  wisdom  of  God.  Our  holiness  cannot  be  like 
His,  for  there  are  many  points  in  our  nature  and 
character  which  have  no  relation  or  correspondence  to 
anything  in  the  divine  nature.  But  what  is  left  ? 
Love  is  left.  Our  other  graces  are  not  like  the  God  to 
whom  they  cleave.  My  faith  is  not  like  His  faithful- 
ness. My  obedience  is  not  like  His  authority.  My 
submission  is  not  like  His  autocratic  power.  My 
emptiness  is  not  like  His  fulness.  My  aspirations  are 
not  like  His  gratifying  of  them.  They  correspond  to 
God,  but  correspondence  is  not  similarity ;  rather  it 
presupposes  unlikeness.  Just  as  a  concavity  will  fit 
into  a  convexity,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  con- 
cave and  not  convex,  so  the  human  unlikenesses, 
which  are  correspondent  to  God,  are  the  character- 
istics by  which  it  becomes  possible  that  we  should 
cleave  to  Him  and  inhere  in  Him.  But  whilst  there 
is  much  in  which  He  stands  alone  and  incomparable, 
and  whilst  we  have  all  to  say,  'Who  is  like  unto 
Thee,  O  Lord?'  or  what  likeness   shall   we  compare 


272   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS    [ch.v. 

unto  Him  ?  we  yet  can  obey  in  reference  to  one  thing, 
— and  to  one  thing  only,  as  it  seems  to  me — the  com- 
mandment of  my  text,  '  Be  ye  imitators  of  God.' 
We  can  be  like  Him  in  nothing  else,  but  our  love  not 
only  corresponds  to  His,  but  is  of  the  same  quality 
and  nature  as  His,  howsoever  different  it  may  be 
in  sweep  and  in  fervour  and  in  degree.  The  tiniest 
drop  that  hangs  upon  the  tip  of  a  thorn  will  be  as 
perfect  a  sphere  as  the  sun,  and  it  will  have  its  little 
rainbow  on  its  round,  with  all  the  prismatic  colours, 
the  same  in  tint  and  order  and  loveliness,  as  when  the 
bow  spans  the  heavens.  The  dew-drop  may  imitate 
the  sun,  and  we  are  to  be  imitators  of  God ;  knit  to 
Him  by  the  one  thing  in  us  which  is  kindred  to  Him  in 
the  deepest  sense — the  love  that  is  the  life  of  God  and 
the  perfecting  of  man. 

Well,  then,  notice  how  the  Apostle  in  the  context 
fastens  upon  a  certain  characteristic  of  that  divine 
love  which  we  are  to  imitate  in  our  lives  ;  and  thereby 
makes  the  precept  a  very  practical  and  a  very  difficult 
one.  Godlike  love  will  be  love  that  gives  as  liberally  as 
His  does.  What  is  the  very  essence  of  all  love  ?  Long- 
ing to  be  like.  And  the  purest  and  deepest  love  is  love 
which  desires  to  impart  itself,  and  that  is  God's  love. 
The  Bible  seems  to  teach  us  that  in  a  very  mysterious 
sense,  about  which  the  less  we  say  the  less  likely  we 
are  to  err,  there  is  a  quality  of  giving  up,  as  well  as 
of  giving,  in  God's  love;  for  we  read  of  the  Father 
that '  spared  not  His  Son,'  by  which  is  meant,  not  that 
He  did  not  shrink  from  inflicting  something  upon  the 
Son,  but  that  He  did  not  grudgingly  keep  that  Son  for 
Himself.  '  He  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered 
Him  up  to  the  death  for  us  all.'  And  if  we  can  say  but 
little  about  that  surrender  on  the  part  of  the  infinite 


V.  1]  GOD'S  IMITATORS  273 

Fountain  of  all  love,  we  can  say  that  Jesus  Christ,  who 
is  the  activity  of  the  Father's  love,  spared  not  Himself, 
but,  as  the  context  puts  it,  '  gave  Himself  up  for  us.' 

And  that  is  the  pattern  for  us.  That  thought  is  not 
a  subject  to  be  decorated  with  tawdry  finery  of 
eloquence,  or  to  be  dealt  with  as  if  it  were  a  senti- 
mental prettiness  very  fit  to  be  spoken  of,  but 
impossible  to  be  practised.  It  is  the  duty  of  every 
Christian  man  and  woman,  and  they  have  not  done 
their  duty  unless  they  have  learned  that  the  bond 
which  unites  them  to  men  is,  in  its  nature,  the  very 
same  as  the  bond  which  unites  men  to  God ;  and  that 
they  will  not  have  lived  righteously  unless  they  learn 
to  be  *  imitators  of  God,'  in  the  surrender  of  themselves 
for  their  brother's  good. 

Ah,  friend,  that  grips  us  very  tight — and  if  there 
were  a  little  more  reality  and  prose  brought  into  our 
sentimental  talk  about  Christian  love,  and  that  love 
were  more  often  shown  in  action,  in  all  the  self- 
suppression  and  taking  a  lift  of  a  world's  burdens, 
which  its  great  Pattern  demands,  the  world  would 
be  less  likely  to  curl  a  scornful  lip  at  the  Church's  talk 
about  brotherly  love. 

You  say  that  you  are  a  Christian — that  is  to  say  a 
child  of  God.  Do  you  know  anything,  and  would 
anybody  looking  at  you  see  that  you  knew  anything, 
about  the  love  which  counts  no  cost  and  no  sacrifice 
too  great  to  be  lavished  on  the  unworthy  and  the 
sinful  ? 

But  that  brings  me  to  another  point.  The  Apostle 
here,  in  the  context,  not  for  the  sake  of  saying  pretty 
things,  but  for  the  sake  of  putting  sharp  points  on 
Christian  duty,  emphasises  another  thought,  that 
Godlike  love  will  be  a  forgiving  love.    Why  should  we 


274     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

be  always  waiting  for  the  other  man  to  determine  our 
relations  to  him,  and  consider  that  if  he  does  not  like 
us  we  are  absolved  from  the  duty  of  loving  him  ? 
Why  should  we  leave  him  to  settle  the  terms  upon 
which  we  are  to  stand  ?  God  has  love,  as  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  puts  it,  '  to  the  unthankful  and  the  evil,' 
and  we  shall  not  be  imitating  His  example  unless  we 
carry  the  same  temper  into  all  our  relationships  with 
our  fellows. 

People  sit  complacently  and  hear  all  that  I  am  now 
trying  to  enforce,  and  think  it  is  the  right  thing  for  me 
to  say,  but  do  you  think  it  is  the  right  thing  for  you  to 
do?  When  a  man  obviously  does  not  like  you,  or 
perhaps  tries  to  harm  you,  what  then?  How  do  you 
meet  him?  'He  maketh  His  sun  to  shine,  and  sendeth 
His  rain,  on  the  unthankful  and  the  evil.'  '  Be  ye 
imitators  of  God,  as  beloved  children.' 

Now  note  the  all-sufficient  motive  for  this  great 
precept. 

The  sense  of  being  loved  will  make  loving,  and 
nothing  else  will.  The  only  power  that  will  eradicate, 
or  break  without  eradicating,  our  natural  tendency  to 
make  ourselves  our  centres,  is  the  recognition  that 
there,  at  the  heart,  and  on  the  central  throne  of  the 
universe,  and  the  divinest  thing  in  it,  there  sits  perfect 
and  self-sacrificing  Love,  whose  beams  warm  even  us. 
The  only  flame  that  kindles  love  in  a  man's  heart, 
whether  it  be  to  God  or  to  man,  is  the  recognition 
that  he  himself  stands  in  the  full  sunshine  of  that 
blaze  from  above,  and  that  God  has  loved  him.  Our 
hearts  are  like  reverberating  furnaces,  and  when  the 
fire  of  the  consciousness  of  the  divine  love  is  lit  in 
them,  then  from  sides  and  roof  the  genial  heat  is 
reflected  back  again  to  intensify  the  central  flame, 


V.  1]  GOD'S  IMITATORS  275 

Love  begets  love,  and  according  to  Paul,  and  accord- 
ing to  John,  and  according  to  the  Master  of  both  of 
them,  if  a  man  loves  God,  then  that  glowing  beam  will 
glow  whether  it  is  turned  to  earth  or  turned  to 
heaven. 

The  Bible  does  not  cut  love  into  two,  and  keep  love 
to  God  in  one  division  of  the  heart  and  love  to  man 
in  another,  but  regards  them  as  one  and  the  same ;  the 
same  sentiment,  the  same  temper,  the  same  attitude 
of  heart  and  mind,  only  that  in  the  one  case  the  love 
soars,  and  in  the  other  it  lives  along  the  level.  The 
two  are  indissolubly  tied  together. 

It  is  because  a  man  knows  himself  to  be  beloved  that 
therefore  he  is  stimulated  and  encouraged  to  be  an 
'  imitator  of  God,'  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sense  of 
being  God's  child  underlies  all  real  imitation  of  Him. 
Imitation  is  natural  to  the  child.  It  is  a  miserable 
home  where  a  boy  does  not  imitate  his  father,  and  it  is 
the  father's  fault  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  if  he  does 
not.  Whoever  feels  himself  to  be  a  beloved  child  is 
thereby  necessarily  drawn  to  model  himself  on  the 
Father  that  he  loves,  because  he  knows  that  the  Father 
loves  him. 

So  I  come  to  the  blessed  truth  that  Christian  morality 
does  not  say  to  us,  '  Now  begin,  and  work,  and  tinker 
away  at  yourselves,  and  try  to  get  up  some  kind  of 
excellence  of  character,  and  then  come  to  God,  and 
pray  Him  to  accept  you.'  That  is  putting  the  cart 
before  the  horse.  The  order  is  reversed.  We  are  to 
begin  with  taking  our  personal  salvation  and  God's 
love  to  us  for  granted,  and  to  work  from  that.  Realise 
that  you  are  beloved  children,  and  then  set  to  work 
to  live  accordingly.  If  we  are  ever  to  do  what  is  our 
bounden  duty  to  do,   in   all  the  various   relations  of 


276     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

life,  we  must  begin  with  recognising,  with  faithful  and 
grateful  hearts,  the  love  wherewith  God  has  loved  us. 
We  are  to  think  much  and  confidently  of  ourselves  as 
beloved  of  God,  and  that,  and  only  that,  will  make  us 
loving  to  men. 

The  Nile  floods  the  fields  of  Egypt  and  brings  green- 
ness and  abundance  wherever  its  waters  are  carried, 
because  thousands  of  miles  away,  close  up  to  the 
Equator,  the  snows  have  melted  and  filled  the  water- 
courses in  the  far-off  wilderness.  And  so,  if  we  are  to 
go  out  into  life,  living  illustrations  and  messengers  of 
a  love  that  has  redeemed  even  us,  we  must,  in  many  a 
solitary  moment,  and  in  the  depths  of  our  quiet  hearts, 
realise  and  keep  fast  the  conviction  that  God  hath 
loved  us,  and  Christ  hath  died  for  us. 

But  a  solemn  consideration  has  to  be  pressed  on  all 
our  consciences,  and  that  is  that  there  is  something 
wrong  with  a  man's  Christian  confidence  whose  as- 
surance that  he  himself  possesses  a  share  in  the  love 
of  God  in  Christ,  is  not  ever  moving  him  to  imitation 
of  the  love  in  which  he  trusts.  It  is  a  shame  that  any 
one  without  Christian  faith  and  love  should  be  as 
charitable,  as  open  to  pity  and  to  help,  as  earnest  in 
any  sort  of  philanthropic  work,  as  Christian  men  and 
women  are.  But  godless  and  perfectly  secular  philan- 
thropy treads  hard  on  the  heels  of  Christian  charity 
to-day.  The  more  shame  to  us  if  we  have  been  eating 
our  morsels  alone,  and  hugging  ourselves  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  love  which  has  redeemed  us ;  and  if  it 
has  not  quickened  us  to  the  necessity  of  copying  it 
in  our  relations  to  our  fellows.  There  is  something 
dreadfully  wrong  about  such  a  Christian  character. 
'He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
how  shall  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?' 


▼.  1]  CHILDREN  OF  LIGHT  277 

Take  these  plain  principles,  and  honestly  fit  them  to 
your  characters  and  lives,  and  you  will  revolutionise 
both. 


WHAT  CHILDREN  OF  LIGHT  SHOULD  BE 

•  Walk  as  children  of  light,'— Eph.  v.  8. 

It  was  our  Lord  who  coined  this  great  name  for  His 
disciples.  Paul's  use  of  it  is  probably  a  reminiscence 
of  the  Master's,  and  so  is  a  hint  of  the  existence  of  the 
same  teachings  as  we  now  find  in  the  existing  Gospels, 
long  before  their  day.  Jesus  Christ  said,  'Believe  in 
the  light,  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  light';  and 
Paul  gives  substantially  the  same  account  of  the  way 
by  which  a  man  becomes  a  Son  of  the  Light  when  he 
says,  in  the  words  preceding  my  text,  'Ye  were  some- 
times darkness,  but  now  are  ye  light  in  the  Lord.' 

Union  with  Him  makes  light,  just  as  the  bit  of  carbon 
will  glow  as  long  as  it  is  in  contact  with  the  electric 
force,  and  subsides  again  into  darkness  when  that  is 
switched  off.  To  be  in  Christ  is  to  be  a  child  of  light, 
and  to  believe  in  Christ  is  to  be  in  Him. 

But  the  intense  moral  earnestness  of  our  Apostle  is 
indicated  by  the  fact  that  on  both  occasions  in  which 
he  uses  this  designation  he  does  so,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  heightening  the  sense  of  the  honour  and  prerogative 
attached  to  it,  but  for  the  sake  of  deducing  from  it 
plain  and  stringent  moral  duties,  and  heightening  the 
sense  of  obligation  to  holy  living. 

'  Walk  as  children  of  light.'  Be  true  to  your  truest, 
deepest  self.  Manifest  what  you  are.  Let  the  sweet, 
sacred  secrets  of  inward  communion  come  out  in  the 
trivialities  of  ordinary  conduct;  make  of  your  every 
thought  a  deed,  and   see  to   it   that  every  deed   be 


278     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

vitalised  and  purified  by  its  contact  with  the  great 
truths  and  thoughts  that  lie  in  this  name.  These  are 
various  ways  of  putting  this  one  all-sufficient  directory 
of  conduct. 

Now,  in  the  context,  the  Apostle  expands  this  con- 
centrated exhortation  in  three  or  four  different  direc- 
tions, and  perhaps  we  may  best  set  forth  its  meaning 
if  we  shape  our  remarks  by  these.  I  venture  to  cast 
them,  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  into  a  hortatory  form. 

I.  Aim  at  an  all-round  productiveness  of  the  natural 
fruits  of  the  light. 

The  true  reading  is,  'Walk  as  children  of  light,  for 
the  fruit  of  the  light'  (not  sinrit,  as  the  Authorised 
Version  reads  it)  '  is  in  all  goodness  and  righteousness 
and  truth.'  Now,  it  is  obvious  that  the  alteration  of 
'light'  instead  of  'spirit'  brings  the  words  into  con- 
nection with  the  preceding  and  the  following.  The 
reference  to  the  'fruits  of  the  spirit'  would  be  entirely 
irrelevant  in  this  place ;  a  reference  to  the  '  fruit  of  the 
light,'  as  being  every  form  of  goodness  and  righteous- 
ness and  truth,  is  altogether  in  place. 

There  is,  then,  a  natural  tendency  in  the  light  to 
blossom  out  into  all  forms  and  types  of  goodness. 
'  Fruit '  suggests  the  idea  of  natural,  silent,  spontaneous, 
effortless  growth.  And,  although  that  is  by  no  means 
a  sufficient  account  of  the  process  by  which  bad  men 
become  good  men,  it  is  an  inseparable  element,  in  all 
true  moral  renovation,  that  it  be  the  natural  outcome 
and  manifestation  of  an  inward  principle ;  otherwise  it 
is  mere  hypocritical  adornment,  or  superficial  appear- 
ance. If  we  are  to  do  good  we  must  first  of  all  be  good. 
If  from  us  there  are  to  come  righteousness  and  truth, 
and  all  other  graces  of  character,  there  must,  first  of  all, 
be  the  radical  change  which  is  involved  in  passing  from 


T.8]  CHILDREN  OF  LIGHT  279 

separateness  in  the  darkness  to  union  with.  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  light.  The  Apostle's  theory  of  moral  renovation 
is  that  you  must  begin  with  the  implantation  in  the 
spirit  of  the  source  of  all  moral  goodness — viz.  Jesus 
Christ — brought  into  the  heart  by  the  uniting  power 
of  humble  faith.  And  then  there  will  be  lodged  in  our 
being  a  vital  power,  of  which  the  natural  outcome  will 
be  all  manner  of  fair  and  pure  things.  Effort  is  needed, 
as  I  shall  have  to  say ;  but  prior  to  effort  there  must  be 
union  with  Jesus  Christ. 

This  wide,  general  commandment  of  our  text  is  suffi- 
ciently definite,  thinks  Paul;  for  if  the  light  be  in  you 
it  will  naturally  effloresce  into  all  forms  of  beauty. 
Light  is  the  condition  of  fruitfulness.  Everywhere  the 
vital  germ  is  only  acted  upon  by  the  light.  No  sun- 
shine, no  flowers;  darkness  produces  thin,  etiolated, 
whitened,  and  feeble  shoots  at  the  best.  Let  the  light 
blaze  in,  and  the  blanched  feebleness  becomes  vigorous 
and  unfolds  itself.  How  much  more  will  light  be  the 
condition  of  fruitfulness  when  the  very  light  itself  is 
the  seed  from  which  all  fruit  is  developed. 

But,  still  further,  mark  how  there  must  be  an  all- 
round  completeness  in  order  that  we  shall  fairly  set 
forth  the  glory  and  power  of  the  light  of  which  our 
faith  makes  us  children  and  partakers.  The  fruit  '  is 
in  all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth.'  These 
three  aspects — the  good,  the  right,  the  true — may  not 
be  a  scientific,  ethical  classification,  but  they  give  a 
sufficiently  plain  and  practical  distinction.  Goodness, 
in  which  the  prevailing  idea  is  beneficence  and  the 
kindlier  virtues ;  righteousness,  which  refers  to  the 
sterner  graces  of  justice ;  truth,  in  which  the  prevalent 
idea  is  conformity  in  action  with  facts  and  the  con- 
ditions of  man's  life  and  entire  sincerity — these  three 


280     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v 

do  cover,  with  sufficient  completeness,  tiie  whole  ground 
of  possible  human  excellence.  But  the  Apostle  widens 
them  still  further  by  that  little  word  all. 

We  all  tend  to  cultivate  those  virtues  which  are  in 
accordance  with  our  natural  dispositions,  or  are  made 
most  easy  to  us  by  our  circumstances.  And  there  is 
nothing  in  which  we  more  need  to  seek  comprehen- 
siveness than  in  the  effort  to  educate  ourselves  into, 
and  to  educe  from  ourselves,  kinds  of  goodness  and 
forms  of  excellence  which  are  not  naturally  in  accord- 
ance with  our  dispositions,  or  facilitated  by  our  cir- 
cumstances. The  tree  planted  in  the  shrubbery  will 
grow  all  lopsided ;  the  bushes  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff 
will  be  shorn  away  on  the  windward  side  by  the  teeth 
of  the  south-western  gale,  and  will  lean  over  north- 
wards, on  the  side  of  least  resistance.  And  so  we  all 
are  apt  to  content  ourselves  with  doing  the  good  things 
that  are  easiest  for  us,  or  that  fit  into  our  tempera- 
ment and  character.  Jesus  Christ  would  have  us  to 
be  all-round  men,  and  would  that  we  should  seek  to 
aim  after  and  possess  the  kinds  of  excellence  that  are 
least  cognate  to  our  characters.  Are  you  strong,  and 
do  you  pride  yourself  upon  your  firmness?  Cultivate 
gentleness.  Are  you  amiable,  and  pride  yourself,  per- 
haps, upon  your  sympathetic  tenderness  ?  Try  to  get 
a  little  iron  and  quinine  into  your  constitution.  Seek 
to  be  the  man  that  you  are  least  likely  to  be,  and  aim 
at  a  comprehensive  development  of  '  all  righteousness 
and  goodness  and  truth.' 

Further,  remember  that  this  all-round  completeness 
is  not  attained  as  the  result  of  an  effortless  growth. 
True,  these  things  are  the  fruits  of  the  light,  but  also 
true,  they  are  the  prizes  of  struggle  and  the  trophies 
of  warfare.    No  man  will  ever  attain  to  the  compre- 


V.8]  CHILDREN  OF  LIGHT  281 

hensive  moral  excellence  which  it  is  in  his  own  power 
to  win ;  no  Christian  will  ever  be  as  all-round  a  good 
man  as  he  has  the  opportunities  of  being,  unless  he 
makes  it  his  business,  day  by  day,  to  aim  after  the 
conscious  increase  of  gifts  that  he  possesses,  and  the 
conscious  appropriation  and  possession  of  those  of 
which  he  is  still  lacking.  *  Nothing  of  itself  will 
come,'  or  very  little.  True,  the  light  will  shine  out  in 
variously  tinted  ray  if  it  be  in  a  man,  as  surely  as  from 
the  seed  come  the  blade  and  the  ear  and  the  full  corn 
in  the  ear,  but  you  will  not  have  nor  keep  the  light 
which  thus  will  unfold  itself  unless  you  put  forth 
appropriate  effort.  Christ  comes  into  our  hearts,  but 
we  have  to  bring  Him  there.  Christ  dwells  in  our 
hearts,  but  we  have  to  work  into  our  nature,  and  work 
out  in  action,  the  gifts  that  He  bestows.  They  will 
advance  but  little  in  the  divine  life  who  trust  to  the 
natural  unfolding  of  the  supernatural  life  within  them, 
and  do  not  help  its  unfolding  by  their  own  resolute 
activity.  *Walk  as  children  of  the  light.'  There  is 
your  duty,  for  'the  fruit  of  the  light  is  all  righteous- 
ness.' One  might  have  supposed  that  the  command- 
ments would  be,  *  Be  passive  as  children  of  the  light, 
for  the  light  will  grow.'  But  the  Apostle  binds  to- 
gether, as  always,  the  two  things,  the  divine  work- 
ing and  the  human  effort  at  reception,  retention,  and 
application  of  that  divine  work,  just  as  he  does  in  the 
great  classical  passage,  *  Work  out  your  own  salvation, 
for  it  is  God  that  worketh  in  you.' 

II.  Secondly,  the  general  exhortation  of  my  text 
widens  out  itself  into  this — test  all  things  by  Christ's 
approval  of  them. 

'  Proving  what  is  well  pleasing  unto  the  Lord.'  That, 
according  to  the  natural  construction  of  the  Greek,  is 


282     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

the  main  way  by  which  the  Apostle  conceives  that  his 
general  commandment  of  '  walkiug  as  children  of  the 
light '  is  to  be  carried  out.  You  do  it  if,  step  by  step, 
and  moment  by  moment,  and  to  every  action  of  life, 
you  apply  this  standard — Does  Christ  like  it?  Does 
it  please  Him?  When  that  test  is  rigidly  applied, 
then,  and  only  then,  will  you  walk  as  becomes  the 
children  of  the  light. 

So,  then,  there  is  a  standard — not  what  men  approve, 
not  what  my  conscience,  partially  illuminated,  may 
say  is  permissible,  not  what  is  recognised  as  allowable 
by  the  common  maxims  of  the  world  round  about  us, 
but  Christ's  approval.  How  different  the  hard,  stern, 
and  often  unwelcome  prescriptions  of  law-and  rigidity 
of  some  standards  of  right  become  when  they  are 
changed  into  that  which  pleases  the  Divine  Lord  and 
Lover!  Surely  it  is  something  blessed  that  the  hard, 
cold,  and  to  such  a  large  extent  powerless  conceptions 
of  duty  or  obligation  shall  be  changed  into  pleasing 
Jesus  Christ ;  and  that  so  our  hearts  shall  be  enlisted 
in  the  service  of  our  consciences,  and  love  shall  be  glad 
to  do  the  Beloved's  will.  There  are  many  ways  by 
which  the  burden  of  life's  obligations  is  lightened  to 
the  Christian.  I  do  not  know  that  any  of  them  is 
more  precious  than  the  fact  that  law  is  changed  into 
His  will,  and  that  we  seek  to  do  what  is  right  because 
it  pleases  the  Master.     There  is  the  standard. 

It  will  be  easy  for  us  to  come  to  the  right  apprecia- 
tion of  individual  actions  when  we  are  living  in  the 
light.  Union  with  Jesus  Christ  will  make  us  quick  to 
discern  His  will.  We  have  a  conscience; — well,  that 
needs  educating  and  enlightening,  and  very  often 
correcting.  We  have  the  Word  of  God ; — well,  that 
needs  explanation,  and  needs  to  be  brought  close  to 


▼.8]  CHILDREN  OF  LIGHT  283 

our  heart8.  If  we  have  Christ  dwelling  in  us,  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  are  in  sympathy  with  Him,  we 
shall  be  gifted  with  clear  eyes,  not  indeed  to  discern 
the  expedient — that  belongs  to  another  region  alto- 
gether— but  we  shall  be  gifted  with  very  clear  eyes 
to  discern  right  from  wrong,  and  there  will  be  an 
instinctive  recoil  from  the  evil,  and  an  instinctive 
attachment  of  ourselves  to  the  good.  If  we  are  in  the 
Lord  we  shall  easily  be  able  to  prove  what  is  accept- 
able and  well- pleasing  to  Him. 

We  shall  never  walk  as  the  children  of  the  light, 
unless  we  have  the  habit  of  referring  everything,  trifles 
and  great  things,  to  His  arbitrament,  and  seeking  in 
them  all  to  do  what  is  pleasing  in  His  sight.  The 
smallest  deed  may  be  brought  under  the  operation 
of  the  largest  principles.  Gravitation  influences  the 
microscopic  grain  of  sand  as  well  as  planets  and  sun. 
There  is  nothing  so  small  but  you  can  bring  it  into  this 
category — it  either  pleases  or  displeases  Jesus  Christ. 
And  the  faults  into  which  Christian  men  fall  and  in 
which  they  continue  are  very  largely  owing  to  their 
carelessness  in  applying  this  standard  to  the  small 
things  of  their  daily  lives.  The  sleepy  Custom  House 
officers  let  the  contraband  article  in  because  it  seems 
to  be  of  small  bulk.  There  are  old  stories  about  how 
strong  castles  were  taken  by  armed  men  hidden  in  an 
innocent-looking  cart  of  forage.  Do  you  keep  up  a  rigid 
inspection  at  the  frontier,  and  see  to  it  that  everything 
vindicates  its  right  to  enter  because  it  is  pleasing  to 
Jesus  Christ. 

III.  Thirdly,  we  have  here  another  expansion  of  the 
general  command,  and  that  is — keep  well  separate 
from  the  darkness. 

Have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works  of 


284     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

darkness,  but  rather  reprove  them.'  Now,  your  time 
will  not  allow  me  to  dwell,  as  I  had  hoped  to  do, 
upon  the  considerations  to  be  suggested  here.  The 
very  briefest  possible  mention  of  them  is  all  that  I 
can  afford. 

'  The  unfruitful  works  of  darkness ' ; — well,  then,  the 
darkness  has  its  works,  but  though  they  be  works  they 
are  not  worth  calling  fruit.  That  is  to  say,  nothing 
except  the  conduct  which  flows  from  union  with  Jesus 
Christ  so  corresponds  to  the  man's  nature  and  relations, 
or  has  any  such  permanence  about  it  as  to  entitle  it  to 
be  called  fruit.  Other  acts  may  be  *  works,'  but  Paul 
will  not  dishonour  the  great  word  *  fruit '  by  applying 
it  to  such  rubbish  as  these,  and  so  he  brands  them  as 
'unfruitful  works  of  darkness,' 

Keep  well  clear  of  them,  says  the  Apostle.  He  is  not 
talking  here  about  the  relations  between  Christians 
and  others,  but  about  the  relations  between  Christian 
men  and  the  ivorks  of  darkness.  Only,  of  course,  in 
order  to  avoid  fellowship  with  the  works  you  will  some- 
times have  to  keep  yourselves  well  separate  from  their 
doers.  Much  association  with  such  men  is  forced  upon 
us  by  circumstances,  and  much  is  the  imperative  duty 
of  Christian  beneficence  and  charity.  But  I  venture 
to  express  the  strong  and  growing  conviction  that 
there  are  few  exhortations  that  the  secularised  Church 
of  this  generation  needs  more  than  this  commandment 
of  my  text :  '  Have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful 
works  of  darkness.'  '  What  communion  hath  light 
with  darkness?'  Ah!  we  see  plenty  of  it,  unnatural 
as  it  is,  in  the  so-called  Church  of  to-day.  'What 
concord  hath  Christ  with  Belial?  What  part  hath  he 
that  believeth  with  an  infidel?  Come  ye  out  from 
among  them,  and  be  ye  separate.' 


V.8]  CHILDREN  OF  LIGHT  285 

And,  brethren,  remember,  a  part  of  the  separation 
is  that  your  light  shall  be  a  constant  condemnation  of 
the  darkness.  'But  rather  reprove  them,'  says  my 
text ;  that  is  a  work  that  devolves  upon  all  Christians. 
It  is  to  be  done,  no  doubt,  by  the  silent  condemnation 
of  evil  which  ever  comes  from  the  quiet  doing  of  good. 
As  an  old  preacher  has  it,  'The  presence  of  a  saint 
hinders  the  devil  of  elbow-room  for  doing  his  tricks.' 
The  old  legend  told  us  that  the  fire-darting  Apollo 
shot  his  radiant  arrows  against  the  pythons  and 
'dragons  of  the  slime.*  The  sons  of  light  have  the 
same  office — by  their  light  of  life  to  make  the  dark- 
ness aware  of  itself,  and  ashamed  of  itself ;  and  to 
change  it  into  light. 

But  silent  reproving  is  not  all  our  duty.  The  Christian 
Church  has  wofully  fallen  beneath  its  duty,  not  only 
in  regard  to  its  complicity  with  the  social  crimes  of 
each  generation,  but  in  regard  to  its  cowardly  silence 
towards  them ;  especially  when  they  flaunt  and  boast 
themselves  in  high  places.  What  has  the  Church  said 
worthy  of  itself  in  regard  to  war  ?  What  has  the 
Church  said  worthy  of  itself  in  regard  to  impurity? 
What  has  the  Church  said  worthy  of  itself  in  regard 
to  drunkenness?  What  has  the  Church  said  worthy 
of  itself  in  regard  to  the  social  vices  that  are  honey- 
combing society  and  this  city  to-day?  If  you  are  the 
sons  of  light,  walk  as  the  sons  of  light,  and  have  'no 
fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness';  but 
set  the  trumpet  to  your  lips,  and  '  declare  unto  My 
people  their  transgressions,  and  to  the  house  of  Israel 
their  sin.' 


THE  FRUIT  OF  THE  LIGHT 

'  The  fruit  of  the  light  is  in  all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth.'— 

Eph.  v.  9  (R.V.) 

This  is  one  of  the  cases  in  which  the  Revised  "Version 
has  done  service  by  giving  currency  to  an  unmistakably 
accurate  and  improved  reading.  That  which  stands  in 
our  Authorised  Version,  'the  fruit  of  the  Spirit,'  seems 
to  have  been  a  correction  made  by  some  one  who  took 
offence  at  the  violent  metaphor,  as  he  conceived  it, 
that  '  light '  should  bear  '  fruit,'  and  desired  to  tinker 
the  text  so  as  to  bring  it  into  verbal  correspondence 
with  another  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians, 
where  '  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit '  are  enumerated.  But 
the  reading,  '  the  fruit  of  the  light,'  has  not  only  the 
preponderance  of  manuscript  authority  in  its  favour, 
but  is  preferable  because  it  preserves  a  striking  image, 
and  is  in  harmony  with  the  whole  context. 

The  Apostle  has  just  been  exhorting  his  Ephesian 
friends  to  walk  as  '  children  of  the  light,'  and  before  he 
goes  on  to  expand  and  explain  that  injunction  he  inter- 
jects this  parenthetical  remark,  as  if  he  would  say,  To 
be  true  to  the  light  that  is  in  you  is  the  sum  of  duty, 
and  the  condition  of  perfectness,  'for  the  fruit  of  the 
light  is  in  all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth.' 
That  connection  is  entirely  destroyed  by  the  substitu- 
tion of  'spirit.'  The  whole  context,  both  before  and 
after  my  text,  is  full  of  references  to  the  light  as 
working  in  the  life ;  and  a  couple  of  verses  after  it 
we  read  about  '  the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness,'  an 
expression  which  evidently  looks  back  to  my  text. 

So  please  to  understand  that  our  text  iu  this  sermon 


V.9]       THE  FRUIT  OF  THE  LIGHT        287 

is — '  The  fruit  of  the  light  consists  in  all  goodness  and 
righteousness  and  truth.' 

I.  Now,  first  of  all,  I  have  just  a  word  to  say  about 
this  light  which  is  fruitful. 

Note — for  it  is,  I  think,  not  without  significance — a 
minute  variation  in  the  Apostle's  language  in  this  verso 
and  in  the  context.  He  has  been  speaking  of  'light,' 
now  he  speaks  of  *  the  light' ;  and  that,  I  think,  is  not 
accidental.  The  expression,  'walk  as  children  of  light,' 
is  more  general  and  vague.  The  expression,  'the  fruit 
of  the  light,'  points  to  some  specific  source  from  which 
all  light  flows.  And  observe,  also,  that  we  have  in  the 
previous  context,  'Ye  were  sometime  darkness,  but 
now  are  ye  light  in  the  Lord,'  which  evidently  implies 
that  the  light  of  which  my  text  speaks  is  not  natural 
to  men,  but  is  the  result  of  the  entrance  into  their 
darkness  of  a  new  element. 

Now  I  do  not  suppose  that  we  shoud  be  entitled  to 
say  that  Paul  here  is  formally  anticipating  the  deep 
teaching  of  the  Apostle  John  that  Jesus  Christ  is  '  the 
Light  of  men,'  and  especially  of  Christian  men.  But 
he  is  distinctly  asserting,  I  think,  that  the  light  which 
blesses  and  hallows  humanity  is  no  diffused  glow,  but 
is  all  gathered  and  concentrated  into  one  blazing 
centre,  from  which  it  floods  the  hearts  of  men.  Or, 
to  put  away  the  metaphor,  he  is  here  asserting  that 
the  only  way  by  which  any  man  can  cease  to  be,  in 
the  doleful  depths  of  his  nature,  darkness  in  its 
saddest  sense  is  by  opening  his  heart  through  faith, 
that  into  it  there  may  rush,  as  the  light  ever  does 
where  an  opening — be  it  only  a  single  tiny  cranny — is 
made,  the  light  which  is  Christ,  and  without  whom  is 
darkness. 

I  know,  of  course,  that,  apart  altogether  from  the 


288     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

exercise  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  there  do  shine  in 
men's  hearts  rays  of  the  light  of  knowledge  and  of 
purity ;  but  if  we  believe  the  teaching  of  Scripture, 
these,  too,  are  from  Christ,  in  His  universally-diffused 
work,  by  which,  apart  altogether  from  individual 
faith,  or  from  a  knowledge  of  revelation,  He  is 
'  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the 
world.'  And  I  hold  that,  wheresoever  there  is  con- 
science, wheresoever  there  is  judgment  and  reason, 
wheresoever  there  are  sensitive  desires  after  excellence 
and  nobleness,  there  is  a  flickering  of  a  light  which 
I  believe  to  be  from  Christ  Himself.  But  that  light, 
as  widely  diffused  as  humanity,  fights  with,  and  is 
immersed  in,  darkness.  In  the  physical  world,  light 
and  darkness  are  mutually  exclusive :  where  the  one  is 
the  other  comes  not ;  but  in  the  spiritual  world  the 
paradox  is  true  that  the  two  co-exist.  Apart  from 
revelation  and  the  acceptance  of  Jesus  Christ's  person 
and  work  by  our  humble  faith,  the  light  struggles 
with  the  darkness,  and  the  darkness  obstinately 
refuses  to  admit  its  entrance,  and  '  comprehendeth 
it  not.'  And  so,  ineffectual  but  to  make  restless  and 
to  urge  to  vain  efforts  and  to  lay  up  material  for 
righteous  judgment,  is  the  light  that  shines  in  men 
whose  hearts  are  shut  against  Christ.  The  fruitful 
light  is  Christ  within  us,  and,  unless  we  know  and 
possess  it  by  the  opening  of  heart  and  mind  and  will, 
the  solemn  words  preceding  my  text  are  true  of  us : 
'Ye  were  sometime  darkness.'  Oh,  brother !  do  you  see 
to  it  that  the  subsequent  words  are  true  of  you  :  '  Now 
are  ye  light  in  the  Lord.'  Only  if  you  are  in  Christ  are 
you  truly  light. 

II.  Now,   secondly,  notice    the  fruitfulness    of    this 
indwelling  light. 


V.9]        THE  FRUIT  OF  THE  LIGHT        289 

Of  course  the  metaphor  that  light,  like  a  tree,  grows 
and  blossoms  and  puts  forth  fruit,  is  a  very  strong 
one.  And  its  very  violence  and  incongruity  help  its 
force.  Fruit  is  generally  used  in  Scripture  in  a  good 
sense.  It  conveys  the  notion  of  something  which  is 
the  natural  outcome  of  a  vital  power,  and  so,  when 
we  talk  about  the  light  being  fruitful,  we  are  setting, 
in  a  striking  image,  the  great  Christian  thought  that,  if 
you  want  to  get  right  conduct,  you  must  have  renewed 
character;  and  that  if  you  have  renewed  character 
you  will  get  right  conduct.  This  is  the  principle  of 
my  text.  The  light  has  in  it  a  productive  power; 
arfd  the  true  way  to  adorn  a  life  with  all  things 
beautiful,  solemn,  lovely,  is  to  open  the  heart  to  the 
entrance  of  Jesus  Christ. 

God's  way  is — first,  new  life,  then  better  conduct. 
Men's  way  is,  '  cultivate  morality,  seek  after  purity, 
try  to  be  good.'  And  surely  conscience  and  experience 
alike  tell  us  that  that  is  a  hopeless  effort.  To  begin 
with  what  should  be  second  is  an  anachronism 
in  morals,  and  will  be  sure  to  result  in  failure  in 
practice.  He  is  not  a  wise  man  that  tries  to  build 
a  house  from  the  chimneys  downwards.  And  to  talk 
about  making  a  man's  doings  good  before  you  have 
secured  a  radical  change  in  the  doer,  by  the  infusion 
into  him  of  the  very  life  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  is  to 
begin  at  the  top  story,  instead  of  at  the  foundation. 
Many  of  us  are  trying  to  put  the  cart  before  the  horse 
in  that  fashion.  Many  of  us  have  made  the  attempt 
over  and  over  again,  and  the  attempt  always  has 
failed  and  always  will  fail.  You  may  do  much  for  the 
mending  of  your  characters  and  for  the  incorporation 
in  your  lives  of  virtues  and  graces  which  do  not  grow 
there  naturally  and  without  effort.    I  do  not  want 

T 


290    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIxVNS  [ch.v. 

to  cut  the  nerves  of  any  man's  stragglings,  I  do 
not  want  to  darken  the  brightness  of  any  man's 
aspirations,  but  I  do  say  that  the  people  who,  apart 
from  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  entrance  into  their  souls 
by  faith  of  His  quickening  power,  are  seeking,  some 
of  them  nobly,  some  of  them  sadly,  and  all  of  them 
vainly,  to  cure  their  faults  of  character,  will  never 
attain  anything  but  a  superficial  and  fragmentary 
goodness,  because  they  have  begun  at  the  wrong  end. 

Bat  'make  the  tree  good,'  and  its  fruit  will  be 
good.  Get  Christ  into  your  heart,  and  all  fair  things 
will  grow  as  the  natural  outcome  of  His  indwelling. 
The  fruitfulness  of  the  light  is  not  put  upon  its  right 
basis  until  we  come  to  understand  that  the  light  is 
Christ  Himself,  who,  dwelling  in  our  hearts  by  faith, 
is  made  in  us  as  well  as  'unto  us  wisdom,  and 
righteousness,  and  salvation,  and  redemption.*  The 
beam  that  is  reflected  from  the  mirror  is  the  very 
beam  that  falls  on  the  mirror,  and  the  fair  things  in 
life  and  conduct  which  Christian  people  bring  forth 
are  in  very  deed  the  outcome  of  the  vital  power  of 
Jesus  Christ  which  has  entered  into  them.  'I  live, 
yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me,'  is  the  Apostle's 
declaration  in  the  midst  of  his  strui^gles;  and  the 
perfected  saints  before  the  throne  cast  their  crowns  at 
His  feet,  and  say,  'Not  unto  us!  not  unto  us,  but 
unto  Thy  name  be  the  glory.'  The  talent  is  the 
Lord's,  only  the  spending  of  it  is  the  servant's.  And 
so  the  order  of  the  Divine  appointment  is,  first,  the 
entrance  of  the  light,  and  then  the  conduct  that  flows 
from  it. 

Note,  too,  how  this  same  principle  of  the  fruitful- 
ness of  the  light  giv^es  instruction  as  to  the  true  place 
of  effort  in  the  Christian  life.    The  main  efl:ort  ought 


V.  9]       THE  FRUIT  OF  THE  LIGHT        291 

to  be  to  get  more  of  the  light  into  ourselves.  'Abide 
in  Me,  and  I  in  you.'  And  so,  and  only  so,  will  fruit 
come. 

And  such  an  effort  has  to  take  in  hand  all  the  cir- 
cumference of  our  being,  and  to  jBx  thoughts  that 
wander,  and  to  still  wishes  that  clamour,  and  to  empty 
hearts  that  are  full  of  earthly  loves,  and  to  clear  a 
space  in  minds  that  are  crammed  with  thoughts  about 
the  transient  and  the  near,  in  order  that  the  mind 
may  keep  in  steadfast  contemplation  of  Jesus,  and  the 
heart  may  be  bound  to  Him  by  cords  of  love  that  are 
not  capable  of  being  snapped,  and  scarcely  of  being 
stretched,  and  the  will  may  in  patience  stand  saying, 
'  Speak,  Lord !  for  Thy  servant  heareth ' ;  and  the 
whole  tremulous  nature  may  be  rooted  and  built  up 
in  and  on  Him.  Ah,  brother!  if  we  understand  all 
that  goes  to  the  fulfilment  of  that  one  sweet  and 
merciful  injunction,  'Abide  in  Me,'  we  shall  recognise 
that  there  is  the  field  on  which  Christian  effort  is 
mainly  to  be  occupied. 

But  that  is  not  all.  For  there  must  be  likewise  the 
effort  to  appropriate,  and  still  more  to  manifest  in 
conduct,  the  fruit-bringing  properties  of  that  indwell- 
ing light.  '  Giving  all  diligence  add  to  your  faith.' 
'Having  these  promises,  let  us  cleanse  ourselves  from 
all  filthiness  of  flesh  and  spirit,  perfecting  holiness  in 
the  fear  of  the  Lord.'  We  are  often  told  that  just  as 
we  trust  Christ  for  our  forgiveness  and  acceptance,  so 
we  are  to  trust  Him  for  our  sanctifying  and  perfecting. 
It  is  true,  and  yet  it  is  not  true.  We  are  to  trust 
Him  for  our  sanctifying  and  our  perfecting.  But  the 
faith  which  trusts  Him  for  these  is  not  a  substitute 
for  effort,  but  it  is  the  foundation  of  effort.  And  the 
more  we  rely  on  His  power  to  cleanse  us  from  all  evil, 


292     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

the  more  are  we  bound  to  make  the  effort  in  His 
power  and  in  dependence  on  Him,  to  cleanse  ourselves 
from  all  evil,  and  to  secure  as  our  own  the  natural 
outcomes  of  His  dwelling  within  us,  which  are  'the 
fruits  of  the  light.' 

III.  And  so,  lastly,  notice  the  specific  fruits  which 
the  Apostle  here  dwells  upon. 

They  consist,  says  he,  in  all  goodness  and  righteous- 
ness and  truth.  Now  'goodness'  here  seems  to  me 
to  be  used  in  its  narrow^er  sense,  just  as  the  same 
Apostle  uses  it  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  in 
contrast  with  'righteousness,'  where  he  says,  'for  a 
good  man  some  would  even  dare  to  die.'  There  he 
means  by  'good,'  as  he  does  here  by  'goodness,' 
not  the  general  expression  for  all  forms  of  virtue 
and  gracious  conduct,  but  the  specific  excellence  of 
kindliness,  amiability,  or  the  like.  '  Righteousness,* 
again,  is  that  which  rigidly  adheres  to  the  strict  law 
of  duty,  and  carefully  desires  to  give  to  every  man 
what  belongs  to  him,  and  to  every  relation  of  life 
what  it  requires.  And  *  truth '  is  rather  the  truth  of 
sincerity,  as  opposed  to  hypocrisy  and  lies  and  shams, 
than  the  intellectual  truth  as  opposed  to  error. 

Now,  all  these  three  types  of  excellence — kindliness, 
righteousness,  truthfulness — are  apt  to  be  separated. 
For  the  first  of  them — amiability,  kindliness,  gentle- 
ness— is  apt  to  become  too  soft,  to  lose  its  grip  of 
righteousness,  and  it  needs  the  tonic  of  the  addition 
of  those  other  graces,  just  as  you  need  lime  in  water 
if  it  is  to  make  bone.  Righteousness,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  apt  to  become  stern,  and  needs  the  softening 
of  goodness  to  make  it  human  and  attractive.  The 
rock  is  grim  when  it  is  bare ;  it  wants  verdure  to 
drape  it  if  it  is  to  be  lovely.    Truth  needs  kindliness 


V.  9]        THE  FRUIT  OF  THE  LIGHT        293 

and  righteousness,  and  they  need  truth.  For  there 
are  men  who  pride  themselves  on  '  speaking  out,'  and 
take  rudeness  and  want  of  regard  for  other  people's 
sensitive  feelings  to  be  sincerity.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  possible  that  amiability  may  be  sweeter  than 
truth  is,  and  that  righteousness  may  be  hypocritical 
and  insincere.  So  Paul  says,  'Let  this  white  light  be 
resolved  in  the  prism  uf  your  characters  into  the  three- 
fold rays  of  kindliness,  righteousness,  truthfulness.' 

And  then,  again,  he  desires  that  each  of  us  should 
try  to  make  our  own  a  fully  developed,  all-round 
perfection — all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth  ; 
of  every  sort,  that  is,  and  in  every  degree.  We 
are  all  apt  to  cultivate  graces  of  character  which 
correspond  to  our  natural  disposition  and  make.  We 
are  all  apt  to  become  to7^sos,  fragmentary,  one-sided, 
like  the  trees  that  grow  against  a  brick  wall,  or  those 
which  stand  exposed  to  the  prevailing  blasts  from 
one  quarter  of  the  sky.  But  we  should  seek  to 
appropriate  types  of  excellence  to  which  we  are  least 
inclined,  as  well  as  those  which  are  most  in  harmony 
with  our  natural  dispositions.  If  you  incline  to  kind- 
liness, try  to  brace  yourselves  with  righteout^ness;  if 
you  incline  to  righteousness,  to  take  the  stein,  strict 
view  of  duty,  and  to  give  to  every  man  what  he 
deserves,  remember  that  you  do  not  give  men  their 
dues  unless  you  give  them  a  great  deal  more  than 
their  deserts,  and  that  righteousness  does  not  perfectly 
allot  to  our  fellows  what  they  ought  to  receive  from 
us,  unless  we  give  them  pity  and  indulgence  and  for- 
bearance and  forgiveness  when  it  is  needed.  The  one 
light  breaks  into  all  colours — green  in  the  grass, 
purple  and  red  in  the  flowers,  flame-coloured  in  the 
morning  sky,  blue  in  the  deep  sea.    The  light  that  is 


294     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

in  us  ought,  in  like  manner,  to  be  analysed  into,  and 
manifested  in,  'whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of 
good  report.' 

And  so,  dear  friends,  here  is  a  test  for  us  all. 
Devout  emotion,  orthodox  creed,  practical  diligence 
in  certain  forms  of  benevolence  and  philanthropic 
work,  are  all  very  well;  but  Jesus  Christ  came  to 
make  us  like  Himself,  and  to  turn  our  darkness  into 
light  that  betrays  its  source  by  its  resemblance, 
though  it  be  a  weakened  one,  to  the  sun  from  which 
it  came.  We  have  no  right  to  call  ourselves  Christ's 
followers  unless  we  are,  in  some  measure,  Christ's 
pictures. 

Here  is  a  message  of  cheer  and  hope  for  us  all.  We 
have  all  tried,  and  tried,  and  tried,  over  and  over 
again,  to  purge  and  mend  these  poor  characters  of 
ours.  How  long  the  toil,  how  miserable  and  poor  the 
results!  A  million  candles  will  not  light  the  night; 
but  when  God's  mercy  of  sunrise  comes  above  the 
hills,  boasts  of  prey  slink  to  their  dens  and  birds 
begin  to  sing,  and  flowers  open,  and  growth  resumes 
again.  We  cannot  mend  ourselves  except  partially 
and  superficially;  but  we  can  open  will,  heart,  and 
mind,  by  faith,  for  His  entrance ;  and  where  He 
comes,  there  He  slays  the  evil  creatures  that  live  in 
and  love  the  dark,  and  all  gracious  things  will  blossom 
into  beauty.  If  we  are  in  the  Lord  we  shall  be  light ; 
and  if  the  Lord,  who  is  the  Light,  is  in  us,  we,  too, 
shall  bear  fruits  of  'all  righteousness  and  goodness 
and  truth.' 


PLEASING  CHRIST 

•proving  what  is  acceptable  trnto  the  Lord.'— Eph.  v.  10. 

These  words  are  closely  connected  with  those  which 
precede  them  in  the  8th  verse — '  Walk  as  children  of 
light.'  They  further  explain  the  mode  by  \\ liich  that 
commandment  is  to  be  fulfilled.  They  who,  as  children 
of  light,  mindful  of  their  obligations  and  penetrated  by 
its  brightness,  seek  to  conform  their  active  life  to  the 
light  to  which  they  belong,  are  to  do  so  by  making  ex- 
periment of,  or  investigating  and  determining,  what  is 
•acceptable  to  the  Lord.'  It  is  the  sum  of  all  Christian 
duty,  a  brief  compendium  of  conduct,  an  all-sufficient 
directory  of  life. 

There  need  only  be  two  remarks  made  by  way  of 
explanation  of  my  text.  One  is  that  the  expression 
rendered  'acceptable'  is  more  accurately  and  forcibly 
given,  as  in  the  Revised  Version,  by  the  plainer  word 
'  well-pleasing.'  And  the  other  is  that '  the  Lord '  here, 
as  always  in  the  New  Testament — unless  the  context 
distinctly  forbids  it — means  Jesus  Christ.  Here  the 
context  distinctly  demands  it.  For  only  a  sentence  or 
two  before,  the  Apostle  has  been  speaking  about '  those 
who  were  sometime  darkness  having  been  made  light 
in  the  Lord' — which  is  obviously  in  Jesus  Christ. 

And  here,  therefore,  what  pleases  Christ  is  the  Chris- 
tian's highest  duty,  and  the  one  prescription  which  is 
required  to  be  obeyed  in  order  to  walk  in  the  light  is, 
to  do  that  which  pleases  Him. 

I.  So,  then,  in  these  brief  words,  so  comprehensive, 
and  going  so  deep  into  the  secrets  of  holy  and  noble 
living,  I  want  you  to  notice  that  we  have,  first,  the  only 
attitude  which  corresponds  to  our  relations  to  Christ, 

296 


296     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

How  remarkable  it  is  that  this  Apostle  should  go  on 
the  presumption  that  our  conduct  affects  Him,  that 
it  is  possible  for  us  to  please,  or  to  displease  Jesus 
Christ  now.  We  often  wonder  whether  the  beloved 
dead  are  cognisant  of  what  we  do;  and  whether  any 
emotions  of  something  like  either  our  earthly  com- 
placency or  displeasure,  can  pass  across  the  undisturbed 
calm  of  their  hearts,  if  they  are  aware  of  what  their 
loved  ones  here  are  doing.  That  question  has  to  be  left 
very  much  in  the  dark,  however  our  hearts  may  some- 
times seek  to  enforce  answers.  But  this  we  know,  that 
that  loving  Lord,  not  merely  by  the  omniscience  of  His 
divinity,  but  by  the  perpetual  knowledge  and  sympathy 
of  His  perfect  manhood,  is  not  only  cognizant  of,  but  is 
affected  by,  the  conduct  of  His  professed  followers  here 
on  earth.  And  since  it  is  true  that  He  now  is  not  swept 
away  into  some  oblivious  region  where  the  dead  are, 
but  is  close  beside  us  all,  cognizant  of  every  act,  watch- 
ing every  thought,  and  capable  of  having  something 
like  a  shadow  of  a  pang  passing  across  the  Divine  depth 
of  His  eternal  joy  and  repose  at  the  right  hand  of  God, 
then,  surely,  the  only  thing  that  corresponds  to  such  a 
relationship  as  at  present  subsists  between  the  Chris- 
tian soul  and  the  Lord  is  that  we  should  take  as  our 
supreme  and  continual  aim  that, '  whether  present  or 
absent,  we  should  be  well-pleasing  to  Him.'  Nor  does 
that  demand  rest  only  upon  the  realities  of  our  present 
relation  to  that  Lord,  but  it  goes  back  to  the  past  facts 
on  which  our  present  relation  rests.  And  the  only 
fitting  response  to  what  He  has  been  and  done  for  us  is 
that  we  should,  each  of  us,  in  the  depth  of  our  hearts, 
and  in  the  widest  circumference  of  the  surface  of  our 
lives,  enthrone  Him  as  absolute  Lord,  and  take  His 
good  pleasure  as  our  supreme   law.     Jesus   Christ  is 


T.IO]  PLEASING  CHRIST  297 

King  because  He  is  Redeemer.  The  only  adequate  re- 
sponse to  what  He  has  done  for  me  is  that  I  should 
absolutely  submit  myself  to  Him,  and  say  to  Him,  *  O 
Lord !  truly  I  am  Thy  servant !  Thou  hast  loosed  my 
bonds.'  The  one  fitting  return  to  make  for  that  Cross 
and  Passion  is  to  enthrone  His  will  upon  my  will,  and 
to  set  Him  as  absolute  Monarch  over  the  whole  of  my 
nature.  Thoughts,  aifections,  purposes,  efforts,  and  all 
should  crown  Him  King,  because  He  has  died  for  me. 
The  conduct  which  corresponds  to  the  relations  which 
we  bear  to  Christ  as  the  present  Judge  of  our  work,  and 
the  Redeemer  of  our  souls  by  His  mighty  deed  in  the 
past,  is  this  of  my  text,  to  make  my  one  law  His  will,  and 
to  please  Him  that  hath  called  me  to  be  His  soldier. 

The  meaning  of  being  a  Christian  is  that,  in  return 
for  the  gift  of  a  whole  Christ,  I  give  my  whole  self  to 
Him.  '  Why  call  ye  me  Lord !  Lord !  and  do  not  the 
things  which  I  say  ? '  If  He  is  what  He  assuredly  is  to 
every  one  of  us,  nothing  can  be  plainer  than  that  we 
are  thereby  bound  by  obligations  which  are  not  iron, 
but  are  more  binding  than  if  they  w^ere,  because  they 
were  woven  out  of  the  cords  of  love  and  the  bands  of  a 
man,  bound  to  serve  Him  supremely.  Him  only.  Him 
always,  Him  by  the  suppression  of  self,  and  the  making 
His  pleasure  our  law. 

11.  Now,  secondly,  let  me  ask  you  to  notice  that  we 
have  here  the  all-sufficient  guide  for  practical  life. 

It  sounds  very  mystical,  and  a  trifle  vague,  to  say, 
Do  everything  to  please  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  all-com- 
prehensive ;  it  is  mystical  in  the  sense  that  it  goes 
down  below  the  mere  surface  of  prescriptions  about 
conduct.  But  it  is  not  vague,  and  it  is  capable  of  im- 
mediate application  to  every  part,  and  to  every  act,  of 
every  man's  life. 


298     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

For  what  is  it  that  pleases  Jesus  Christ?  His  own 
likeness;  as,  according  to  the  old  figure — which  is,  I 
suppose,  true  to  spiritual  facts,  whether  to  external 
facts  or  not — the  refiner  knows  that  the  metal  is  ready- 
to  flow  when  he  can  see  his  own  face  in  it.  Jesus 
Christ  desires  most  that  we  should  all  be  like  Him. 
That  we  are  to  bear  His  image  is  as  comprehensive,  and 
at  the  same  lime  as  specific,  a  way  of  setting  forth  the 
sum  of  Christian  duty,  as  are  the  words  of  my  text. 
The  two  phrases  mean  the  same  thing. 

And  what  is  the  likeness  to  Jesus  Christ  which  it 
is  thus  our  supreme  obligation  and  our  truest  wisdom 
and  perfection  to  bear  ?  Well !  we  can  put  it  all  into 
two  words — self-suppression  and  continual  conscious- 
ness of  obedience  to  the  Divine  will.  The  life  of  Jesua 
Christ,  in  its  brief  records  in  Scripture,  is  felt  by  every 
thoughtful  man  to  contain  within  its  narrow  compass 
adequate  direction  for,  and  to  set  forth  the  ideal  of, 
human  life.  That  is  not  because  He  went  through  all 
varieties  of  earthly  experience,  for  He  did  not.  The  life 
of  a  Jewish  peasant  nineteen  centuries  ago  was  ex- 
tremely unlike  the  life  of  a  Manchester  merchant,  of  a 
college  professor,  of  a  successful  barrister,  of  a  strug- 
gling mother,  in  this  present  day.  But  in  the  narrow 
compass  of  that  life  there  are  set  forth  these  two 
things,  which  are  the  basis  of  all  human  perfection — 
the  absolute  annihilation  of  self-regard,  and  the  per- 
petual recognition  of  a  Divine  will.  These  are  the 
things  which  every  Christian  man  and  woman  is  bound 
by  the  power  of  Christ's  Cross  to  translate  into  the 
actions  correspondent  with  their  particular  circum- 
stances. And  so  the  student  at  his  desk  and  the  sailor 
on  his  deck,  the  miner  in  his  pit,  the  merchant  on 
'Change,  the  worker  in  various  handicrafts,  may  each 


v.lO]  PLEASING  CHRIST  299 

be  sure  that  they  are  doing  what  is  pleasing  to  Christ 
if,  in  their  widely  different  ways,  they  seek  to  do  what 
they  can  do  in  all  the  varieties  of  life — crucify  self,  and 
commune  with  God. 

That  is  not  easy.  Whatever  may  be  the  objections 
to  be  brought  against  this  summary  of  Christian  duty, 
the  objection  that  it  is  vague  is  the  last  that  can  be 
sustained.  Try  it,  and  you  will  find  out  that  it  is  any- 
thing but  vague.  lb  will  grip  tight  enough,  depend 
upon  it.  It  will  go  deep  enough  down  into  all  the  com- 
plexities of  our  varying  circumstances.  If  it  has  a 
fault  (which  it  has  not)  it  is  in  the  direction  of  too  great 
stringency  for  unaided  human  nature.  But  the  strin- 
gency is  not  too  great  when  we  depend  upon  Him  to 
help  us,  and  an  impossible  ideal  is  a  certain  prophet  of 
its  own  fulfilment  some  day. 

So,  brethren,  here  is  the  sufficient  guide,  not  because 
it  cumbers  us  with  a  mass  of  wretched  little  prescrip- 
tions such  as  a  martinet  might  give,  about  all  sorts  of 
details  of  conduct.  That  is  left  to  profitless  casuists 
like  the  ancient  rabbis.  But  the  broad  principles  will 
effloresce  into  all  manner  of  perfectnesses  and  all 
fruits.  He  that  has  in  his  heart  these  thoughts,  that 
the  definition  of  virtue  is  pleasing  Jesus  Christ,  that 
the  concrete  form  of  goodness  is  likeness  to  Him,  and 
that  the  elements  of  likeness  to  Him  are  these  two,  that 
I  should  never  think  about  myself,  and  always  think 
about  God,  needs  no  other  guide  or  instructor  to  fill 
his  life  with  '  whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good 
report,'  and  to  make  his  own  all  that  the  world  calls 
virtue,  and  all  which  the  consciences  of  good  men  have 
conspired  to  praise. 

But  not  only  does  this  guide  prove  its  sufficiency  by 
reason  of  its  comprehensiveness,  but  also  because  there 


300     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

is  no  dijBiculty  in  ascertaining  what  at  each  moment  it 
prescribes.  Of  course,  I  know  that  such  a  precept  as 
this  cannot  contain  in  itself  guidance  in  matters  of 
mere  practical  expediency.  But,  apart  from  these — 
which  are  to  be  determined  by  the  ordinary  exercise  of 
prudence  and  common  sense — in  regard  to  the  right 
and  the  wrong  of  our  actions,  I  believe  that  if  a  man 
wants  to  know  Christ's  will,  and  takes  the  way  of  know- 
ing it  which  Christ  has  appointed,  he  shall  not  be  left 
in  darkness,  but  shall  have  the  light  of  life. 

For  love  has  a  strange  power  of  divining  love's 
wishes,  as  we  all  know,  and  as  many  a  sweetness  in 
the  hearts  and  lives  of  many  of  us  has  shown  us.  If 
we  cherish  sympathy  with  Jesus  Christ  we  shall  look 
on  things  as  He  looks  on  them,  and  w^e  shall  not  be  left 
without  the  knowledge  of  what  His  pleasure  is.  If  we 
keep  near  enough  to  Him  the  glance  of  His  eye  will  do 
for  guidance,  as  the  old  psalm  has  it.  They  are  rough 
animal  natures  that  do  not  understand  how  to  go, 
unless  their  instructors  be  the  crack  of  the  whip  or  the 
tug  of  the  bridle.  '  I  will  guide  thee  with  Mine  eye.'  A 
glance  is  enough  where  there  are  mutual  understanding 
and  love.  Two  musical  instruments  in  adjoining  rooms, 
tuned  to  the  same  pitch,  have  a  singular  affinity,  and  if 
a  note  be  struck  on  the  one  the  other  will  vibrate  to 
the  sound.  And  so  hearts  here  that  love  Jesus  Christ 
and  keep  in  unison  with  Him,  and  are  sympathetic  with 
His  desires,  will  learn  to  know  His  will,  and  will  re-echo 
the  music  that  comes  from  Him.  And  if  our  supreme 
desire  is  to  know  what  pleases  Jesus  Christ,  depend 
upon  it  the  desire  will  not  be  in  vain.  '  If  any  man 
wills  to  do  His  will  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine.' 
Ninety  per  cent,  of  all  our  perplexities  as  to  conduct 
come  from  our  not  having  a  pure  and  simple  wish  to 


y.io]  PLEASING  CHRIST  301 

do  what  is  right  in  His  sight,  clearly  supreme  above 
all  others.  When  we  have  that  wish  it  is  never  left 
unsatisfied. 

And  even  if  sometimes  we  do  make  a  mistake  as  to 
what  is  Christ's  pleasure,  if  our  supreme  wish  and 
honest  aim  in  the  mistake  have  been  to  do  His  pleasure, 
we  may  be  sure  that  He  will  be  pleased  with  the  deed. 
Even  though  its  body  is  not  that  which  He  willed  us  to 
do,  its  spirit  is  that  which  He  does  desire.  And  if  we 
do  a  wrong  thing,  a  thing  in  itself  displeasing  to  Him, 
whilst  all  the  while  we  desired  to  please  Him,  we  shall 
please  Him  in  the  deed  which  would  otherwise  have 
displeased  Him.  And  so  two  Christian  men,  for  in- 
stance, who  take  opposite  sides  in  a  controversy,  may 
both  of  them  be  doing  what  is  well-pleasing  in  His 
sight,  whilst  they  are  contradicting  one  another,  if  they 
are  doing  it  for  His  sake.  And  it  is  possible  that  the 
inquisitor  and  his  victim  may  both  have  been  serving 
Christ.  At  all  events,  let  us  be  sure  of  this,  that  when- 
soever we  desire  to  please  Him,  He  will  help  us  to  do 
it,  and  ordinarily  will  help  us  by  making  clear  to  us  the 
path  on  which  His  smile  rests. 

III.  Again,  notice  that  we  have  here  an  all-powerful 
motive  for  Christian  life. 

The  one  thing  which  all  other  summaries  of  duty 
lack  is  motive  power  to  get  themselves  carried  into 
practice.  But  we  all  know,  from  our  own  happy 
human  experience,  that  no  motive  which  can  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  men  is  stronger,  when  there  are  loving 
hearts  concerned,  than  this  simple  one,  '  Do  it  to  please 
me.'  And  that  is  what  Jesus  Christ  really  says.  That 
is  no  piece  of  mere  sentiment,  brethren,  nor  of  mere 
pulpit  rhetoric.  That  is  the  deepest  thought  of  Chris- 
tian morality,  and  is  the  distinctive  peculiarity  which 


302     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

gives  the  morality  of  the  New  Testament  its  clear 
supremacy  over  all  other.  There  are  precepts  in  it 
far  nobler  and  loftier  than  can  be  found  elsewhere. 
The  perspective  of  virtues  and  graces  in  it  is  different 
from  that  which  ordinarily  prevails  amongst  men.  But 
I  do  not  think  that  it  is  in  the  details  of  its  precepts  so 
much  as  in  the  communication  of  power  to  obey  them, 
and  in  the  suggestion  of  the  motive  which  makes  them 
all  easy,  that  the  difference  of  Christ's  ethics  from  all 
the  teaching  of  the  world  beside  is  most  truly  to  be 
found. 

And  here  lies  the  excellence  thereof.  It  is  a  poor, 
cold  thing  to  say  to  a  man,  '  Do  this  because  it  is  right.' 
It  is  a  still  more  powerless  thing  to  say  to  him,  'Do  this 
because  it  is  expedient.'  '  Do  this  because,  in  the  long 
run,  it  leads  to  happiness.'  It  is  all  different  when  you 
say,  *Do  this  to  please  Jesus  Christ,  to  please  that 
Christ  wha  pleased  not  Himself  but  gave  Himself  for 
you.'  That  is  the  fire  that  melts  the  ore.  That  is  the 
heat  that  makes  flexible  the  hard,  stiff  material.  That 
is  the  motive  w^hich  makes  duty  delight,  which  makes 
'the  rough  places  plain'  and  'the  crooked  things 
straight.'  It  does  not  abolish  natural  tastes,  it  does  not 
supersede  natural  disinclinations,  but  it  does  smooth 
and  soften  unwelcome  and  hard  tasks,  and  it  inA'ests 
service  with  a  halo  of  glory,  and  changes  the  coldness 
of  duty  into  rosy  light ;  as  when  the  sunrise  strikes  on 
the  peaks  of  the  frozen  mountains.  The  one  motive 
which  impels  men,  and  can  be  trusted  to  secure  in  them 
whatsoever  things  are  noble,  is  to  please  Him. 

So  we  have  the  secret  of  blessedness  in  these  wordsc 
For  self-submission  and  suppression  are  blessedness. 
Our  miseries  come  from  our  unbridled  wills,  far  more 
than  from  our  sensitive  organisations.     It  is  because 


V.  10]  WORKS  OF  DARIvNESS  SOS 

we  do  not  accept  providences  that  providences  hurt. 
It  is  because  we  do  not  accept  the  commandments 
that  the  commandments  are  burdensome.  Those  who 
have  no  will,  except  as  it  is  vitalised  by  God's  will, 
have  found  the  secret  of  blessedness,  and  have  entered 
into  rest.  In  the  measure  in  which  we  approximate 
to  that  condition,  our  wills  will  be  strengthened  as  well 
as  our  hearts  set  at  ease. 

And  blessedness  comes,  too,  because  the  approbation 
of  the  Master,  which  is  the  aim  of  the  servant,  is  re- 
flected in  the  satisfaction  of  an  approving  conscience, 
which  points  onwards  to  the  time  when  the  Master's 
approval  shall  be  revealed  in  the  servant's  glory. 

I  was  reading  the  other  day  about  a  religious 
reformer  who  arose  in  Eastern  lands  a  few  years  since, 
and  gathered  many  disciples.  He  and  his  principal 
follower  were  seized  and  about  to  be  martyred.  They 
were  suspended  by  cords  from  a  gibbet,  to  be  fired  at 
by  a  platoon  of  soldiers.  And  as  they  hung  there,  the 
disciple  turned  to  his  teacher,  and  as  his  last  word  on 
earth  said,  'Master!  are  you  satisfied  with  me?'  His 
answer  was  a  silent  smile  ;  and  the  next  minute  a  bullet 
was  in  his  heart.  Dear  brethren,  do  you  turn  to  Jesus 
Christ  with  the  same  question,  '  Master !  art  Thou  satis- 
fied with  me  ? '  and  you  will  get  His  smile  here ;  and 
hereafter,  '  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant.' 


UNFRUITFUL  WORKS  OF  DARKNESS 

'And  have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness,  but  rather 
reprove  them.'— Eph.  v.  11. 

We  have  seen  in  a  former  sermon  that '  the  fruit,'  or 
outcome,  •  of  the  Light '  is  a  comprehensive  perfection, 


304     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

consisting  in  all  sorts  and  degrees  of  goodness  and 
righteousness  and  truth.  Therefore,  the  command- 
ment, 'Walk  as  children  of  the  light,'  sums  up  all 
Christian  morality.  Is  there  need,  then,  for  any  addi- 
tional precept  ?  Yes  ;  for  Christian  people  do  not  live 
in  an  empty  world.  If  there  were  no  evil  round  them, 
and  no  proclivity  to  evil  within  them,  it  would  be 
amply  sufficient  to  say  to  them,  *  Be  true  to  the  light 
which  you  behold.'  But  since  both  these  things  are, 
the  commandment  of  my  text  is  further  necessary. 
We  do  not  work  in  vacuo,  and  therefore  friction  and 
atmosphere  have  to  be  taken  account  of;  and  an 
essential  part  of  'walking  as  children  of  the  light'  is 
to  know  how  to  behave  ourselves  when  confronted 
with  '  the  works  of  darkness.' 

These  Ephesian  Christians  lived  in  a  state  of  society 
honeycombed  with  hideous  immorality,  the  centre  of 
which  was  the  temple,  which  was  their  city's  glory  and 
shame.  It  was  all  but  impossible  for  them  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  works  of  evil,  unless,  indeed, 
they  went  out  of  the  world.  But  the  difficulty  of 
obedience  does  not  affect  the  duty  of  obedience,  nor 
slacken  in  the  smallest  degree  the  stringency  of  a 
command.  This  obligation  lies  upon  us  as  fully  as  it 
did  upon  them,  and  the  discharge  of  it  by  professing 
Christians  would  bring  new  life  to  moribund  churches. 

I.  Let  me  ask  you  to  note  with  me,  first,  the  fruitless- 
ness  inherent  in  all  the  works  of  darkness. 

You  may  remember  that  I  pointed  out,  in  a  former 
discourse  on  the  context,  that  the  Apostle,  here  and 
elsewhere,  draws  a  very  significant  distinction  between 
•works'  and  'fruit,'  and  that  distinction  is  put  very 
strikingly  in  the  words  of  my  text.  There  are  works 
which  are  barren.     It  is  a  grim  thought  that  there 


v.li]  WORKS  OF  DARKNESS  305 

may  be  abundant  activity  which,  in  the  eyes  of  God, 
conies  to  just  nothing ;  and  that  pages  and  pages  of 
laborious  calculations,  when  all  summed  up,  have  for 
result  a  great  round  O.  Men  are  busy,  and  hosts  of 
them  are  doing  what  the  old  fairy  stories  tell  us  that 
evil  spirits  were  condemned  to  do — spinning  ropes  out 
of  sea-sand  ;  and  their  life-work  is  nought  when  they 
come  to  reckon  it  up. 

I  have  no  time  to  dwell  upon  this  thought,  but  I 
wish,  just  for  a  moment  or  two,  to  illustrate  it. 

All  godless  life  is  fruitless,  inasmuch  as  it  has  no 
permanent  results.  Permanent  results  of  a  sort, 
indeed,  follow  everything  that  men  do,  for  all  our 
actions  tend  to  make  character,  and  they  all  have  a 
share  in  fixing  that  which  depends  upon  character — 
viz.  destiny,  both  here  and  yonder.  And  thus  the  most 
fleeting  of  our  deeds,  which  in  one  aspect  is  as  transi- 
tory as  the  snow  upon  the  great  plains  when  the  sun 
rises,  leaves  everlasting  traces  upon  ourselves  and 
upon  our  condition.  But  yet  acts  concerned  with 
transitory  things  may  have  permanent  fruit,  or  may 
be  as  transient  as  the  things  with  which  they  are  con- 
cerned. And  the  difference  depends  on  the  spirit  in 
which  they  are  done.  If  the  roots  are  only  in  the 
surface-skin  of  soil,  when  that  is  pared  off  the  plant 
goes.  A  life  that  is  to  be  eternal  must  strike  its  roots 
through  all  the  superficial  humus  down  to  the  very 
heart  of  things.  When  its  roots  twine  themselves 
round  God  then  the  deeds  which  blossom  from  them 
will  blossom  unfading  for  ever. 

Think  of  men  going  empty-handed  into  another 
world,  and  saying,  '  O  Lord !  I  made  a  big  fortune  in 
Manchester  when  I  lived  there,  and  I  left  it  all  behind 
me  * ;  or,  *  I  mastered  a  science,  and  one  gleam  of  the 

u 


306     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

light  of  eternity  has  antiquated  it ' ;  or,  *  I  gained 
prizes,  won  my  aims,  and  they  have  all  dropped  from 
my  hands,  and  here  I  stand,  having  to  say  in  the  most 
tragic  sense :  Nothing  in  my  hands  I  bring.'  And 
another  man  dies  in  the  Lord,  and  his  'works  do 
follow'  him.  It  is  not  every  vintage  that  bears  ex- 
portation. Some  wines  are  mellowed  by  crossing  the 
ocean ;  some  are  turned  into  vinegar.  The  works  of 
darkness  are  unfruitful  because  they  are  transient. 

And  they  are  unfruitful  because,  whilst  they  last, 
they  yield  no  real  satisfaction.  The  Apostle  could  say 
to  another  Church  with  a  certainty  as  to  what  ths 
answer  would  be,  'What  fruit  had  ye  then' — when  ye 
were  doing  them — '  in  the  things  whereof  ye  are  now 
ashamed?'  And  the  answer  is  'None!'  Of  course,  it 
is  true  that  men  do  bad  things  because  they  like  them 
better  than  good.  Of  course,  it  is  true  that  the  misery 
of  mankind  is  that  they  have  no  appetite  in  the 
general  for  the  only  real  satisfaction.  But  it  is  also 
true  that  no  man  who  feeds  his  heart  and  mind  on 
anything  short  of  God  is  really  at  rest  in  anything 
that  he  does  or  possesses.  Occasional  twinges  of  con- 
science, dim  perceptions  that  after  all  they  are  walking 
in  a  vain  show ;  glimpses  of  nobler  possibilities,  a 
vague  unrest,  an  unwillingness  to  reflect  and  look  the 
facts  of  their  condition  in  the  face,  like  men  that  will 
not  take  stock  because  they  half  suspect  that  they  are 
insolvent — these  are  the  conditions  that  attach  to  all 
godless  men's  lives.  There  is  no  real  fruit  for  their 
thirsty  lips  to  feed  upon.  The  smallest  man  is  too 
large  to  be  satisfied  with  anj'thing  short  of  Infinity. 
The  human  heart  is  like  some  narrow  opening  on  a 
hill  side,  so  narrow  that  it  looks  as  if  a  glassful  of 
Water  would  fill  it.     But  it  goes  away  down,  down, 


V.  11]  WORKS  OF  DARKNESS  307 

down  into  the  depths  of  the  mountain,  and  you  may 
pour  in  hogsheads  and  no  effect  is  visible.  God,  and 
God  alone,  brings  to  the  thirsty  heart  the  fruit  that 
it  needs. 

Another  solemn  thought  illustrates  the  unfruitful- 
ness  of  a  godless  life.  There  is  no  correspondence 
between  what  such  a  man  does  and  what  he  is  intended 
to  do.  Think  of  what  the  most  degraded  and  sensuous 
wretch  that  shambles  about  the  slums  of  a  city,  sodden 
with  beer  and  rotten  with  profligacy,  could  be.  Think 
of  the  raptures  of  devout  contemplation  and  the 
energies  of  holy  w^ork  which  are  possible  for  that  soul, 
and  then  say — though  it  is  an  extreme  case,  the  prin- 
ciple holds  in  less  extreme  cases — Are  these  things 
that  men  do  apart  from  God,  however  shining,  noble, 
illustrious  they  may  be  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and 
trumpeted  forth  by  the  mouthpieces  of  popular  opinion, 
are  these  things  worth  calling  fruits  fit  to  be  borne  by 
such  a  tree  ?  No  more  than  the  cankers  on  a  rose-bush 
or  the  galls  on  an  oak-tree  are  worthy  of  being  called 
fruit  are  these  works  that  some  of  you  have  as  the 
only  products  of  a  life's  activity.  '  Wherefore,  when  I 
looked  that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes,  brought  it 
forth  wild  grapes  ? ' 

II.  And  now,  secondly,  notice  the  plain  Christian 
duty  of  abstinence. 

•  Have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works  of 
darkness.'  Now,  the  text,  as  it  stands  in  our  version, 
seems  to  suggest  that  these  dark  works  are  personified 
as  companions  whom  a  good  man  ought  to  avoid ; 
and  that,  therefore,  the  bearing  of  the  exhortation  is, 
'Have  nothing  to  do,  in  your  own  individual  lives, 
with  evil  things  that  one  man  can  commit.'  But  I 
take  it  that,  important  as  that  injunction  and  prohibi- 


308     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

tion  is,  the  Apostle's  meaning  is  somewhat  different, 
and  that  my  text  would  perhaps  he  more  accurately 
translated  if  another  word  were  substituted  for  *  have 
no  fellowship  with.'  The  original  expression  seems 
rather  to  mean, '  Do  not  go  partners  with  other  people 
in  works  of  darkness,  which  it  takes  more  than  one 
to  commit.'  Or,  to  put  it  into  another  language,  the 
Apostle  is  regarding  Christian  people  here  as  members 
of  society,  and  exhorting  them  to  a  certain  course  of 
conduct  in  reference  to  plain  and  palpable  existing 
evils  around  them.  And  such  an  exhortation  to  the 
duty  of  plain  abstinence  from  things  that  the  opinion 
of  the  world  around  us  has  no  objection  to,  but  which 
are  contrary  to  the  light,  is  addressed  to  all  Christian 
people. 

The  need  of  it  I  do  not  require  to  illustrate  at  any 
length.  But  let  me  remind  you  that  the  devil  has  no 
more  cunning  way  of  securing  a  long  lease  of  life  for 
any  evil  than  getting  Christian  people  and  Christian 
Churches  to  give  it  their  sanction.  What  was  it  that 
kept  slavery  alive  for  centuries?  Largely,  that 
Christian  men  solemnly  declared  that  it  was  a  divine 
institution.  What  is  it  that  has  kept  war  alive  for  all 
these  centuries  ?  Largely,  that  bishops  and  preachers 
have  always  been  ready  to  bless  colours,  and  to  read 
a  Christening  service  over  a  man-of-war — and,  I  sup- 
pose, to  ask  God  that  an  eighty-ton  gun  might  be 
blessed  to  smash  our  enemies  to  pieces,  and  not  to 
blow  our  sailors  to  bits.  And  what  is  it  that  preserves 
the  crying  evils  of  our  community,  the  immoralities, 
the  drunkenness,  the  trade  dishonesty,  and  all  the 
other  things  that  I  do  not  need  to  remind  you  of  in 
the  pulpit?  Largely  this,  that  professing  Christians 
are  mixed  up  with   them.     If  only  the  whole  body 


T.ll]  WORKS  OF  DARKNESS  309 

of  those  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians 
would  shake  their  hands  clear  of  all  complicity  with 
such  things,  they  could  not  last.  Individual  respon- 
sibility for  collective  action  needs  to  be  far  more 
solemnly  laid  to  heart  by  professing  Christians  than 
ever  it  has  been. 

Nor  need  I  remind  you,  I  suppose,  with  what  fatal 
effects  on  the  Gospel  and  the  Church  itself  all  such 
complicity  is  attended.  Even  the  companions  of 
wrongdoers  despise,  whilst  they  fraternise  with,  the 
professing  Christian  who  has  no  higher  standard  than 
their  own.  What  was  it  that  made  the  Church 
victorious  over  the  combined  forces  of  imperial 
persecution,  pagan  superstition,  and  philosophic  specu- 
lation ?  I  believe  that  among  all  the  causes  that  a 
well-known  historian  has  laid  down  for  the  triumph  of 
Christianity,  what  was  as  powerful  as — I  was  going  to 
say  even  more  than — the  Gospel  of  peace  and  love 
which  the  Church  proclaimed  was  the  standard  of 
austere  morality  which  it  held  up  to  a  world  rotting 
in  its  own  filth.  And  sure  I  am  that  wherever  the 
Church  says,  '  So  do  not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,'  it  will  gain  a  power,  and  will  be  regarded  with 
a  possibly  reluctant,  but  a  very  real,  respect  which 
no  easy-going  coming  down  to  the  level  of  popular 
moralities  will  ever  secure  for  a  silver- slippered 
Christianity.  And  so,  brethren,  I  would  say  to  you, 
Do  not  be  afraid  of  the  old  name  Puritan.  Ignorant 
people  use  it  as  a  scoff.  It  should  be  a  crown  of 
glory.  '  Have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works 
of  darkness.' 

But  how  is  this  to  be  done?  Well,  of  course,  there 
is  only  one  way  of  abstaining,  and  that  is,  to  abstain. 
But  there  are  a  great  many  different  ways  of  abstain- 


310     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

iug.  Light  is  not  fire.  And  the  more  that  Christian 
people  feel  themselves  bound  to  stand  aloof  from 
common  evils,  the  more  are  they  bound  to  see  that 
they  do  it  in  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  which  is  meek- 
ness. It  is  always  an  invidious  position  to  take  up. 
And  if  we  take  it  up  with  any  heat  and  temper,  with 
any  lack  of  moderation,  with  any  look  of  ostentation 
of  superior  righteousness,  or  with  any  trace  of  the 
Boanerges  spirit  which  says,  '  Let  us  call  down  fire 
from  heaven  and  consume  them,'  our  testimony  will 
be  weakened,  and  the  world  will  have  a  right  to  say 
to  us,  '  Jesus  we  know,  and  Paul  we  know ;  but  ^^ho 
are  ye  ? '  '  Who  made  this  man  a  judge  and  a  divider 
over  us?'  *In  meekness  instructing  them  that  oppose 
themselves.' 

III.  Lastly,  note  the  still  harder  Christian  duty  of 
vigorous  protest. 

The  further  duty  beyond  abstinence  which  the  text 
enjoins  is  inadequately  represented  by  our  version, 
'but  rather  reprove  them.'  For  the  word  rendered 
in  our  version  '  reprove '  is  the  same  which  our  Lord 
employed  when  He  spoke  of  the  mission  of  the  Com- 
forter as  being  to  '  convince  (or  convict)  the  world  of 
sin.'  And  it  does  not  merely  mean  '  reprove,'  but  so 
to  reprove  as  to  produce  the  conviction  which  is  the 
object  of  the  reproof. 

This  task  is  laid  on  the  shoulders  of  all  professing 
Christians.  A  silent  abstinence  is  not  enough.  No 
doubt,  the  best  way,  in  some  circumstances,  to  convict 
the  darkness  is  to  shine.  Our  holiness  will  convict  sin 
of  its  ugliness.  Our  light  will  reveal  the  gloom.  The 
presentation  of  a  Christian  life  is  the  Christian  man's 
mightiest  weapon  in  his  conflict  with  the  world's  evil. 
But  that  is  not  all.    And  if  Christian  people  think  that 


v.ll]  WORKS  OF  DARKNESS  311 

they  have  done  all  their  duty,  in  regard  to  clamant  and 
common  iniquities,  by  simply  abstaining  from  them 
and  presenting  a  nobler  example,  they  have  yet  to  learn 
one  very  important  chapter  of  their  duty.  A  dumb 
Church  is  a  dying  Church,  and  it  ought  to  be;  for 
Christ  has  sent  us  here  in  order,  amongst  other  things, 
that  we  may  bring  Christian  principles  to  bear  upon 
the  actions  of  the  community;  and  not  be  afraid  tc 
speak  when  we  are  called  upon  by  conscience  to  do 
so. 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  dwell  upon  this  matter,  but  I 
want  just  to  point  out  to  you  how,  in  the  context  here, 
there  are  two  or  three  very  important  principles 
glanced  at  which  bear  upon  it.  And  one  of  them  is 
this,  that  one  reason  for  speaking  out  is  the  very  fact 
that  the  evils  are  so  evil  that  a  man  is  ashamed  to 
speak  about  them.  Did  you  ever  notice  this  context, 
in  which  the  Apostle,  in  the  next  verse  to  my  text, 
gives  the  reason  for  his  commandment  to  'reprove* 
thus — '  Foi'  it  is  a  shame  even  to  speak  of  those  things 
which  are  done  of  them  in  secret '?  Did  you  ever  hear 
of  a  fantastic  tenderness  for  morality  so  very  sensitive 
that  it  is  not  at  all  shocked  when  the  immoral  things 
are  doney  but  glows  with  virtuous  indignation  when  a 
Christian  man  speaks  out  about  them  ?  There  are 
plenty  of  people  nowadays  who  tell  us  that  it  is  '  indeli- 
cate '  and  '  indecent '  and  '  improper,'  nnd  I  do  not  know 
how  much  else,  for  a  Christian  teacher  or  minister  to 
say  a  word  about  certain  moral  scandals.  But  they  do 
not  say  anything  about  the  immorality  and  the  indeli- 
cacy and  the  indecency  of  doing  them.  Let  us  have 
done  with  that  hypocrisy,  brethren.  I  am  arguing  for 
no  disregard  tor  proprieties;  I  want  all  fitting  reticence 
observed,  and  I  do  not  wish  indiscriminate  rebukes 


312     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

to  be  flung  at  foul  things ;  but  it  is  too  much  to  require 
that,  by  reason  of  the  very  inky  cloud  of  filth  that  they 
fling  up  like  cuttlefish,  they  should  escape  censure.  Let 
us  remember  Paul's  exhortation,  and  reprove  because 
the  things  are  too  bad  to  be  spoken  about. 

Further,  note  in  the  context  the  thought  that  the 
conviction  of  the  darkness  comes  from  the  flashing 
upon  it  of  the  light.  '  All  things  when  they  are  re- 
proved are  made  manifest  by  the  light.'  Which,  being 
translated  into  other  words,  is  this : — Be  strong  in  your 
brave  protest,  because  it  only  needs  that  the  thing 
should  be  seen  as  it  is,  and  called  by  its  right  name,  in 
order  to  be  condemned. 

The  Assyrians  had  a  belief  that  if  ever,  by  any 
chance,  a  demon  saw  himself  in  a  mirror,  he  was 
frightened  at  his  own  ugliness  and  incontinently  fled. 
And  if  Christian  people  would  only  hold  up  the  mirror 
of  Christian  principle  to  the  hosts  of  evil  things  that 
afflict  our  city  and  our  country,  they  would  vanish  like 
ghosts  at  sunrise.  They  cannot  stand  the  light,  there- 
fore let  us  cast  the  light  upon  them. 

And  do  not  forget  the  other  final  principle  here, 
which  is  imperfectly  represented  by  our  translation. 
We  ought  to  read,  'Whatever  is  made  manifest  is 
light.'  Yes.  In  the  physical  world  when  light  falls 
upon  a  thing,  you  see  it  because  there  is  on  it  a  surface 
of  light.  And  in  the  moral  world  the  intention  of  all 
this  conviction  is  that  the  thing  disclosed  to  be  dark- 
ness should,  in  the  very  disclosure,  cease  to  be  dark, 
should  forsake  its  nature  and  be  transformed  into 
light.  Such  transformation  is  not  always  the  case. 
Alas!  There  are  evil  deeds  on  which  the  light  falls, 
and  it  does  nothing.  But  the  purpose  in  all  cases 
should  be,   and  the  issue  in  many  will  be,  that   the 


v.ll]  PAUL  ON  TEMPERANCE  313 

merciful  conviction  by  the  light  will  be  followed  by  the 
conversion  of  darkness  into  light. 

And  so,  dear  brethren,  I  bring  this  text  to  your 
hearts,  and  lay  it  upon  your  consciences.  We  may  not 
all  be  called  upon  to  speak;  we  are  all  called  upon 
to  be.  You  can  shine,  and  by  shining  show  how  dark 
the  darkness  is.  The  obligation  is  laid  upon  us  all ; 
the  commandment  still  comes  to  every  Christian  which 
was  given  to  the  old  prophet,  'Declare  unto  My  people 
their  transgression,  and  to  the  house  of  Jacob  their 
sin.'  A  quaint  old  writer  says  that  the  presence  of  a 
saint  '  hinders  the  devil  of  elbow  room  to  do  his  tricks.' 
We  can  all  rebuke  sin  by  our  righteousness,  and  by  our 
shining  reveal  the  darkness  to  itself.  We  do  not  walk 
as  children  of  the  light  unless  we  keep  ourselves  from 
all  connivance  with  works  of  darkness,  and  by  all 
means  at  our  disposal  reprove  and  convict  them. 
■  Come  out  from  among  them,  and  be  ye  separate,  and 
touch  no  unclean  thing,  saith  the  Lord.' 


PAUL'S  REASONS  FOR  TEMPERANCE 

'And  have  no  fellowship  with  the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness,  but  rather 
reprove  them.  12.  For  it  la  a  shame  even  to  speak  of  those  thiTigs  which  are  done 
of  them  in  secret.  13.  But  all  thinga  that  are  reproved  are  made  manifest  by  tlie 
lip;ht :  for  whatsoever  doth  make  manifest  is  light.  14.  Wherefore  he  saith, 
Awake  thou  that  sleepeat,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and  Chriet  »hall  give  thee  light. 
15.  See  then  that  ye  walk  circuni.spectly,  not  as  fools,  but  as  wise,  IS.  Redeeming 
the  time,  because  the  days  are  evil.  17.  Wherefore  be  ye  not  unwise,  but  under- 
standing what  the  will  of  tho  Lord  is.  18.  And  be  not  drunk  with  wiue,  wherein 
is  excese ;  but  be  flUed  with  the  Spirit ;  19.  Speaking  bo  yourselves  in  psalms,  and 
hymns,  and  spiritual  songs,  singing  and  making  melody  in  your  heoi-C  to  the  Lord; 
20.  Giving  thanks  always  for  all  things  unto  God  and  the  Father  in  the  name  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  21.  Submitting  yoursielves  one  to  another  in  tho  fear  of 
God.'— Eph.  v.  11-21. 

There  are  three  groups  of  practical  exhortations  in  this 
passage,  of  which  the  first  deals  with  the  Christian  as 
a  reproving  light  in  darkness;   the  second,  witU  tlje 


314     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

Christian  life  as  wisdom  in  the  midst  of  folly ;  and  the 
third  with  Christian  sobriety  and  inspiration  as  the 
true  exhilaration  in  contrast  with  riotous  drunkenness. 
Probably  such  intoxication  was  prevalent  in  Ephesus  in 
connection  with  the  worship  of  'Diana  of  the  Ephesians,' 
for  Paul  was  not  the  man  to  preach  vague  warnings 
against  vices  to  which  his  hearers  were  not  tempted. 
An  under-current  of  allusion  to  such  orgies  accomj)any- 
ing  the  popular  cult  may  be  discerned  in  his  words. 

These  two  preceding  sets  of  precepts  can  only  be 
briefly  touched  on  now.  They  lead  up  to  the  third,  ami 
the  second  is  built  on  the  first  by  a  '  therefore '  (ver.  15). 
The  Apostle  has  just  been  saying  that  Christians  were 
'  darkness,  but  are  now  light  in  the  Lord,'  and  thence 
drawing  the  law  for  their  life,  to  walk  as  *  children  of 
light.'  A  very  important  part  of  such  walk  is  recoiling 
from  all  share  in  '  the  unfruitful  works  of  darkness,' — 
a  significant  expression  branding  such  deeds  as  being 
both  bad  in  their  source  and  in  their  results.  Dark 
doings  have  consequences  tragic  enough  and  certain 
enough,  but  they  are  barren  of  all  such  issues  as  cor- 
respond to  men's  obligations  and  capacities.  Their 
outcome  is  like  the  growths  on  a  tree,  which  are  not 
fruit,  but  products  of  disease.  There  is  no  fruit  grown 
in  the  dark ;  there  is  no  worthy  product  from  us  unless 
Christ  is  our  light.  If  He  is,  and  we  are  therefore 
•light  in  the  Lord,'  we  shall  'reprove'  or  'convict'  the 
Christless  life.  Its  sinfulness  will  be  shown  by  the 
contrast  with  the  Christ-life.  A  thunder-cloud  never 
looks  so  lividly  black  as  when  smitten  by  sunshine. 

Our  lives  ought  to  make  evil  things  ashamed  to  show 
their  ugly  faces.  Christians  should  be,  as  it  were,  the 
incarnate  conscience  of  a  community.  The  Apostle  is 
not  thinking  so  much  of  words  as  of  deeds,  though 


vs.  11-21]     PAUL  ON  TEMPERANCE  315 

words  are  not  to  be  withheld  when  needful.  The  agent 
of  reproof  is  '  the  light,'  which  here  is  the  designation 
of  character  as  transformed  by  Jesus,  and  the  process 
of  reproof  or  conviction  is  simply  the  manifestation  of 
the  evil  in  its  true  nature,  which  comes  from  setting  it 
in  the  beams  of  the  light.  To  show  sin  as  it  is,  is  to 
condemn  it ;  '  for  everything  that  is  made  manifest  is 
light.'  Observe  that  Paul  here  speaks  of  'light,'  not 
•the  light,' — that  is,  he  is  speaking  now  not  of  Christian 
character,  which  he  had  likened  to  light,  but  of  physical 
light  to  which  he  had  likened  it,  and  is  backing  up  his 
figurative  statement  as  to  the  reproving  and  manifest- 
ing effects  of  the  former,  by  the  plain  fact  as  to  the 
latter,  that,  when  daylight  shines  on  anything,  it  is 
revealed,  and,  as  it  were,  becomes  light.  He  clenches 
his  exhortation  by  quoting  probably  an  early  Christian 
hymn,  which  regards  Christ  as  the  great  illuminator, 
ready  to  shine  on  all  drowsy,  dark  souls  as  soon  as 
they  stir  and  rouse  themselves  from  drugged  and  fatal 
sleep. 

The  second  set  of  exhortations  here  is  connected 
with  the  former  by  a  *  therefore,'  which  refers  to  the 
whole  preceding  precept.  Because  the  Christian  is  to 
shake  himself  free  from  complicity  with  works  of  dark- 
ness, and  to  be  their  living  condemnation,  he  must  take 
heed  to  his  goings.  A  climber  on  a  glacier  has  to  look 
to  his  feet,  or  he  will  slip  and  fall  down  a  crevasse, 
perhaps,  from  which  he  will  never  be  drawn  up.  Heed- 
lessness is  folly  in  such  a  world  as  this.  ' "  Don't  care  " 
comes  to  the  gallows.'  The  temptation  to  *go  as  you 
please'  is  strong  in  youth,  and  it  is  easy  to  scoff  at 
*  cold-blooded  folks  who  live  by  rule,'  but  they  are  the 
wise  people,  after  all.  A  great  element  in  that  heed- 
fulness  is  a  quick  insight  into  the  special  duty  and 


316     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

opportunity  of  the  moment,  for  life  is  not  merely  made 
up  of  hours,  but  each  has  its  own  particular  errand  for 
us,  and  has  some  possibility  in  it  which,  neglected,  may 
be  lost  for  ever. 

The  mystic  solemnity  of  time  is  that  it  is  made  up 
of  '  seasons.'  We  shall  walk  heedf  ully  in  the  degree  in 
which  we  are  awake  to  the  moment's  meaning,  and 
grasp  opportunity  by  the  forelock,  or,  as  Paul  says, 
•  buy  up  the  opxjortunity.'  But  wise  heed  to  our  walk 
is  not  enough,  unless  we  have  a  sure  standard  by  which 
to  regulate  it.  A  man  may  take  great  care  of  his 
watch,  but  unless  he  can  compare  it  with  a  chronometer, 
or,  as  they  do  in  Edinburgh,  pull  out  their  watches 
when  the  one  o'clock  gun  is  fired  on  a  signal  from 
Greenwich,  he  maybe  far  out  and  not  know  it.  So  the 
Apostle  adds  the  one  way  to  keep  our  lives  right,  and 
the  one  source  of  true,  practical  wisdom — the  '  under- 
standing what  the  will  of  the  Lord  is.'  He  will  not  go 
far  wrong  whose  instinctive  question,  as  each  new 
moment,  with  its  solemn,  animating  possibilities,  meets 
him,  is,  'What  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?'  He  will  not 
be  nearly  right  who  does  not  first  of  all  ask  that. 

Then  Paul  comes  to  his  precept  of  temperance.  It 
naturally  flows  from  the  preceding,  inasmuch  as  a 
drunken  man  is  as  sure  to  be  incapable  of  taking 
heed  to  his  conduct  as  of  walking  straight.  He  reels 
in  both.  He  is  stone-blind  to  the  meaning  of  the 
moments.  He  hears  no  call,  thovigh  the  'voice  of  the 
trumpet'  may  be  'exceeding  loud,'  and  as  for  under- 
standing what  the  will  of  the  Lord  is,  that  is  far 
beyond  him.  The  intoxication  of  an  hour  or  the  habit 
of  drinking  makes  obedience  to  the  foregoing  precepts 
impossible.  This  master  vice  carries  all  other  vices  in 
its  pocket. 


vs.  11-21]     PAUL  ON  TEMPERANCE  317 

Paul  makes  a  daring,  and,  as  some  would  think,  an 
irreverent,  compaiison,  wben  he  proposes  being  'filled 
with  the  Spirit'  as  the  Christian  alternative  or  sub- 
stitute to  being  '  drunken  with  wine.'  But  the  daring 
comparison  suggests  deep  truth.  The  spurious  ex- 
hilaration, the  loosening  of  the  bonds  of  care,  the 
elevation  above  the  pettiness  and  monotony  of  daily 
life,  w^hich  the  drunkard  seeks,  and  is  degraded  and 
deceived  in  proportion  as  he  momentarily  finds,  are  all 
ours,  genuinely,  nobly,  and  to  our  infinite  profit,  if  we 
have  our  empty  spirits  filled  with  that  Divine  Life. 
That  exhilaration  does  not  froth  away,  leaving  bitter 
dregs  in  the  cup.  That  loosening  of  the  bonds  of  care, 
and  elevation  above  life's  sorrows,  does  not  flow  from 
foolish  oblivion  of  facts,  nor  end  in  their  being  again 
roughly  forced  on  us.  *Riot'  bellows  itself  hoarse,  and 
is  succeeded  by  corresponding  depression  ;  but  the  calm 
joys  of  the  Spirit-filled  spirit  last,  grow,  and  become 
calmer  and  more  joyful  every  day. 

The  boisterous  songs  of  boon  companions  are  set  in 
contrast  with  the  Christian  'psalms  and  hymns  and 
spiritual  songs,'  which  were  already  in  use,  and  a 
snatch  from  one  of  which  Paul  has  just  quoted.  Good- 
fellowship  tempts  men  to  drink  together,  and  a  song  is 
a  shoeing-horn  for  a  glass ;  but  the  camaraderie  is  apt 
to  end  in  blows,  and  is  a  poor  caricature  of  the  bond 
knitting  all  who  are  filled  with  the  Spirit  to  one 
another,  and  making  them  willing  to  serve  one  another. 
The  roystering  or  maudlin  geniality  cemented  by 
drink  generally  ends  in  quarrels,  as  everybody  knows 
that  the  truculent  stage  of  intoxication  succeeds  the 
effusively  affectionate  one.  But  they  who  have  the 
Spirit  in  them,  and  not  only  'live  in  the  Spirit,'  but 
•walk  in  the  Spirit,'  esteem  each  the  other  better  than 


318     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIAXS  [ch.  v. 

themselves.  In  a  word,  to  be  filled  with  the  Spirit  is 
the  way  to  possess  all  the  highest  forms  of  the  good 
which  men  are  tempted  to  intoxication  to  secure,  and 
which  in  it  they  find  only  for  a  moment,  and  which  is 
coarse  and  unreal. 


SLEEPERS  AT  NOONDAY 

'Wherefore  He  saith,  Awake  thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the  dead,  and 
Christ  shall  give  thee  light.'— Eph.  v.  14. 

This  is  the  close  of  a  short  digression  about  'light.' 
The  'wherefore'  at  the  beginning  of  my  text  seems  to 
refer  to  the  whole  of  the  verses  that  deal  with  that 
subject.  It  is  as  if  the  Apostle  had  said,  '  I  have  been 
telling  you  about  light  and  its  blessed  effects.  Now  I 
tell  you  how^  you  may  w^in  it  for  yours.  The  condition 
on  which  it  is  to  be  received  by  men  is  that  they  awake 
and  arise  from  the  dead.' 

*  He  saith.'  Who?  The  speaker  whose  words  are 
quoted  is  not  named,  but  this  is  the  common  formula 
of  quotation  from  the  Old  Testament.  It  is,  therefore, 
probable  that  the  word  'Creator'  or  'God'  is  to  be 
supplied.  But  there  is  no  Old  Testament  passage  which 
exactly  corresponds  to  the  words  before  us;  the 
nearest  approach  to  such  being  the  ringing  exhortation 
of  the  prophet  to  the  Messianic  Church, '  Arise !  Shine, 
for  thy  light  is  come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen 
upon  thee.'  And  it  is  probable  that  the  Apostle  is  here 
quoting,  without  much  regard  either  to  the  original 
connection  or  the  primary  purpose  of  the  Avord,  a 
well-known  old  saying  which  seemed  to  him  appropri- 
ately to  fall  in  with  the  trend  of  his  thoughts.  Like 
other  writers  he  often  adorns  his  own  words  with  the 


V.  U]         SLEEPERS  AT  NOONDAY  319 

citation  of  those  of  others  wilhout  being  very  careful 
as  to  whether  he,  in  some  measure,  diverts  those  from 
their  original  intention.  But  the  words  of  my  text 
fairly  represent  the  prophetic  utterance,  in  so  far  as 
they  echo  the  call  to  the  sleepers  to  wake,  and  share 
the  prophet's  confidence  that  light  is  streaming  out 
for  all  those  whose  eyes  are  opened. 

The  want  of  precise  correspondence  between  our 
text  and  the  prophetic  passage  has  led  some  to  suppose 
that  we  have  here  the  earliest  recorded  fragment  of  a 
Christian  hymn.  It  would  be  interesting  if  that  were 
so,  but  the  formula  of  citation  seems  to  oblige  us 
to  look  to  Scripture  for  the  source  from  which  my  text 
is  taken.  However,  let  us  leave  these  thoughts,  and 
come  to  the  text  itself.  It  is  an  earnest  call  from  God. 
It  describes  a  condition,  peals  forth  a  summons,  and 
gives  a  promise.  Let  us  listen  to  what  '  Ho  saith '  in 
all  these  regards. 

I.  First  of  all,  then,  the  condition  of  the  persona 
addressed. 

The  two  sad  metaphors,  shimberers  and  dead,  are 
applied  to  the  same  persons.  There  must,  therefore, 
be  some  latitude  in  the  application  of  the  figures  and 
they  must  be  confined  in  their  interpretation  to  some 
one  or  more  points  in  which  sleep  and  death  are 
alike. 

Now  we  all  know  that,  as  the  proverb  says,  *  sleep  is 
the  image  of  death.'  And  what  is  the  point  of  com- 
parison? Mainly  this,  that  the  sleeper  and  the  corpse 
are  alike  unconscious  of  an  external  world,  unable  to 
receive  impressions  from  it,  or  to  put  forth  action  on 
it;  and  there,  as  I  take  it,  is  especially  the  point  which 
is  in  the  Apostle's  view. 

The  sleeper  and  the  dead  man  alike  are  in  the  midst 


320    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIAXS  [ch.v. 

of  an  order  of  things  of  which  they  are  all  unaware. 
And  you  and  I  live  in  two  worlds,  one,  this  low,  fleet- 
ing, material  one;  and  the  other  the  white,  snowy 
peaks  that  girdle  it  as  do  the  Alps  the  Lombard  plains ; 
and  men  live  all  unconscious  of  that  which  lies  on 
their  horizon.  But  the  metaphor  of  a  level  ground 
encircled  by  mountains  does  not  fully  represent  the 
closeness  of  the  connection  between  these  two  worlds, 
of  })oth  of  which  every  one  of  us  is  a  denizen.  For  on 
all  sides,  pressing  in  upon  us,  enfolding  us  like  an 
atmosphere,  penetrating  into  all  the  material,  under- 
lying all  w^hich  is  visible,  all  of  which  has  its  roots  in 
the  unseen,  is  that  world  which  the  mass  of  men  are 
in  a  conspiracy  to  ignore  and  forgot.  And  just  as  the 
sleeper  is  unconscious  of  all  around  him  in  his  chamber, 
and  of  all  the  stir  and  beauty  of  the  world  in  which  ho 
lives,  so  the  bulk  of  us  go  blind  and  darkling  through 
life,  absorbed  in  the  things  seen,  and  never  lift  even 
a  momentary  and  lack-lustre  glance  to  the  august 
realities  which  lie  behind  these,  and  give  them  all  their 
significance  and  beauty. 

Yes;  and  just  as  in  a  dream  men  are  busy  with  base- 
less phantoms  that  vanish  and  are  forgotten,  and 
seem  to  themselves  to  be  occupied,  whilst  all  the  -u  hile 
they  are  lying  prone  and  passive,  so  the  mass  of  us 
are  sleep-walkers.  "What  are  many  men  who  will  be 
hurrying  on  to  the  Manchester  Exchange  on  Tuesday? 
What  are  they  but  men  who  are  dreaming  that  they 
are  at  work,  but  are  only  at  work  on  dreams  which 
will  vanish  when  the  eyes  are  opened  ?  Practical  men, 
who  are  busy  and  absorbed  with  affairs  and  with  the 
things  of  this  present,  curl  their  lips  about  'idealists' 
of  all  sorts,  be  they  idealists  of  thought,  or  of  art,  or 
of  benevolence,  or  of  religion,  and  call  them  dreamers. 


V.14]         SLEEPERS  AT  NOONDAY  821 

The  boot  is  on  the  other  leg.  It  is  the  idealists  that 
are  awake,  and  it  is  you  people  that  live  for  to-day, 
and  have  not  learned  that  to-day  is  a  little  fragment 
and  sliver  of  eternity — it  is  you  who  are  dreamers,  and 
all  these  things  round  about  us — the  solid-seeming 
realities — are  illusions,  and 

•  Like  the  bubbles  on  a  river, 
Sparkling,  bursting,  borne  away,* 

they  will  disappear.  There  is  only  one  reality,  and 
that  is  God,  and  the  only  lives  that  lay  hold  of  the 
substance  are  those  which  giasp  Him.  The  rest  of 
you  are  shadows  hunting  for  shadows. 

The  two  metaphors  of  my  text  coincide  in  suggest- 
ing another  thing,  and  that  is  the  awful  contrast  in 
the  average  life  between  what  is  in  a  man  and  what 
comes  out  of  him.  'Dormant  power,'  we  talk  about. 
Ah,  how  tragically  the  true  man  is  dormant  in  all  the 
work  of  worldly  hearts !  God  has  made  a  great 
mistake  in  making  you  what  you  are,  if  there  is  no 
place  for  you  to  exercise  your  powers  in  but  this 
present  world,  and  nothing  to  exercise  them  on 
except  the  things  that  pass  and  perish.  Travellers  in 
lands  where  civilisation  used  to  be,  and  barbarism  now 
is,  find  sculptured  stones  from  temples  turned  into 
fences  for  cattle-sheds  and  walls  round  pigstyes.  And 
that  is  something  like  what  men  do  with  the  faculties 
that  God  has  given  them.  Why,  the  best  part  of  you  ^ 
brother,  if  you  are  not  a  Christian,  and  living  a 
Christian  life — the  best  part  of  you  is  asleep,  and  it  is 
only  the  lower  nature  of  you  that  is  awake  I  Some- 
times the  sleepers  stir  uneasily.  It  used  to  be  said 
that  earthquakes  were  caused  by  a  giant  rolling  him- 
self from  side  to  side  in  his  troubled  slumber.      And 


322     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPPIESIANS  [ch.  v. 

there  are  earthquakes  in  your  heart  and  spirit  caused 
by  the  half-waking  of  the  dormant  self,  the  true  man, 
who  is  immersed  and  embruted  in  sense  and  the  things 
of  time.  Some  of  you  by  earthly  lusts,  some  of  you 
by  over-indulgence  in  fleshly  appetites,  eating  and 
drinking  and  the  like ;  some  of  you  by  absorption  in 
the  mere  externals  of  trade  and  profession  and  occu- 
pation to  the  entire  neglect  of  the  inward  thing  which 
would  glorify  and  exalt  these — but  all  of  us  somehow, 
unless  we  are  living  for  God,  have  lulled  our  best,  true, 
central  self  into  slumber,  and  lie  as  if  dead. 

Now,  brethren,  do  not  forget  that  this  exhortation 
of  my  text,  and  therefore  this  description,  is  addressed 
to  a  community  of  professing  Christians.  I  hope  you 
will  not  misunderstand  me  as  if  I  thought  that  such  a 
picture  as  I  have  been  trying  to  draw  applies  only  to 
men  that  have  no  religion  in  them  at  all.  It  applies  in 
varying  degrees  to  men  that  have,  as — I  was  going  to 
say  the  bulk,  but  perhaps  that  is  exaggeration,  let  me 
say  a  tragically  large  number — of  professing  Chris- 
tians, and  a  proportionate  number  of  the  professing 
Christians  in  this  audience  have,  a  little  life  and  a 
great  circumference  of  death.  Dear  brethren,  you 
may  call  yourselves,  and  may  be  Christian  people,  and 
have  somewhat  shaken  off  the  torpor,  and  roused 
yourself  from  the  slumbering  death  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking.  Remember  that  it  still  hangs  to  you, 
and  that  it  was  of  Christians  that  the  Master  said: 
'Whilst  the  Lord  was  away  they  all  slumbered  and 
slept';  and  that  it  was  of  a  Christian  Church,  and  not 
of  a  pagan  world,  that  the  same  voice  from  heaven 
said:  'Thou  hast  a  name  that  thou  livest,  and  art 
dead.'  And  so  I  beseech  you,  bear  with  me,  and  do 
not  think  I  am  scolding,  or  flinging  about  wild  words 


v.U]         SLEEPERS  AT  NOONDAY  828 

at  random,  when  I  make  a  very  earnest  appeal  to 
each  individual  professing,  and  real,  Christian  in  this 
congregation,  and  ask  them  to  consider,  each  for  them- 
selves, how  much  of  sleep  is  still  in  their  drowsy  eyes, 
and  how  far  it  is  true  that  the  quickening  life  of  Jesus 
Christ  has  penetrated,  as  the  sunbeams  into  the 
darkness,  into  the  heavy  mass  of  their  natural 
death. 

II.  Secondly,  let  me  ask  you  to  look  at  the  summons 
to  awake. 

It  comes  like  the  morning  bugle  to  an  army,  '  Awake, 
thou  that  sleepest,  and  arise  from  the  dead.'  Now,  I 
am  not  going  to  waste  your  time  by  talking  about  the 
old,  well-worn,  interminable,  and  unprofitable  con- 
troversy as  to  God's  part  and  man's  in  this  awaking, 
but  I  do  wish  to  insist  upon  this  plain  fact,  that  the 
command  here  presupposes  upon  our  parts,  whether 
we  be  Christian  people  or  not,  the  ability  to  obey.  God 
would  not  mock  a  man  by  telling  him  to  do  what  he 
cannot  do.  And  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  one 
attitude  in  which  we  may  be  sure  of  God's  help  to 
keep  any  of  His  commandments,  and  this  amongst  the 
rest,  is  when  we  are  trying  to  keep  them.  'Stretch 
out  thy  hand,'  said  Christ  to  the  man  whose  disease 
was  that  he  could  not  stretch  it  out.  '  Arise  and 
walk,'  said  Christ  to  the  man  whose  lifelong  sadness 
it  was  that  his  limbs  had  no  power.  '  Lazarus,  come 
forth,'  said  Christ  unto  the  dull,  cold  ear  of  death. 
And  Lazarus  heard,  wherever  he  was,  and,  though  his 
feet  were  tangled  with  the  graveclothes,  he  came 
stumbling  out,  because  the  power  to  do  what  he  was 
bid  had  come  wrapped  in  the  command  to  do  it.  And 
if  these  other  two  men  had  turned  to  Jesus  and  said, 
'  What  is  the  use  of  telling  me  to  stretch  out  my  hand, 


324     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v 

or  me  to  move  my  limbs  ?  Thou  knowest  that  I  can 
not,'  they  would  have  lain  there  paralysed  till  they 
died.  But  when  they  heard  the  command  there 
came  a  tingling  sense  of  new  ability  into  the  withered 
limb.  '  And  he  stretched  forth  his  hand,  and  it  was 
restored  whole  as  the  other.'  Ay,  but  the  process  of 
restoration  began  when  he  willed  to  stretch  it  out  in 
obedience  to  the  command,  w^hich  was  a  promise  as 
much  as  a  command.  So  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves 
with  the  question  how  the  dead  man  can  arise,  or  how 
the  sleeper  can  wake  himself. 

This,  at  all  events,  is  clear,  that  if  what  I  have  been 
saying  is  true  as  to  the  main  point  in  view  in  both 
the  metaphors,  viz.  the  unconsciousness  of  the  unseen 
world,  and  the  slumbering  powers  that  we  have  with- 
in us,  then  the  remedy  for  that  is  in  our  own  hands. 
There  are  scarcely  any  limits  to  be  put  to  a  man's 
capacity  of  determining  for  himself  what  shall  be  the 
object  of  his  thought,  his  interest,  his  affection,  or 
his  pursuits.  You  can  withdraw  your  desires  and 
contemplations  from  the  intrusive  and  absorbing 
present.  You  can  coerce  yourselves  to  concentrate 
more  thought  than  you  do,  more  interest,  affection, 
and  effort  than  you  have  ever  done,  upon  the  things 
that  are  unseen.  You  can  turn  your  gaze  thither. 
You  cannot  directly  and  immediately  regulate  your 
feelings,  but  you  can  settle  the  thoughts  which  shall 
guide  the  feelings,  and  you  can,  and  you  do,  fix  for 
yourselves,  though  not  consciously,  the  things  which 
shall  be  uppermost  in  your  regard,  and  supreme  in 
the  ordering  of  your  life. 

And  so  the  commandment  of  my  text  is  but  this, 
'"Wake  from  the  illusions;  rouse  yourselves  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  things  unseen  and  eternal.    Let 


v.li]  SLEEPERS  AT  NOONDAY  825 

the  Lord  always  be  before  your  face.'  And  you  will 
be  awake  and  alive. 

III.  And  so  my  last  point  is  the  promise  of  the 
morning  light  which  gladdens  the  wakeful  eye. 
'  Christ  shall  give  thee  light.' 

Now,  if  the  words  of  my  text  are  an  allusion  to  the 
prophecy  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  it  is  strik- 
ing to  observe,  though  I  cannot  dwell  upon  the 
thought,  that  Paul  here  unhesitatingly  ascribes  to 
Jesus  Christ  an  action  which,  in  the  source  of  his 
quotation,  is  ascribed  to  Jehovah.  '  Arise,  shine,  for 
thy  light  has  come,  and  the  glory  of  Jehovah  is  risen 
upon  thee,'  says  the  prophet.  '  Arise !  thou  that 
sleepest,' says  Paul, 'and  Christ  shall  give  thee  light.' 
As  always,  he  regards  his  Lord  as  possessed  of  fully 
divine  attributes;  and  he  has  learned  the  depth  of 
the  Master's  own  saying,  'Whatsoever  things  the 
Father  doeth,  these  also  doeth  the  Son  Ukeivise'  But 
I  turn  from  that  to  the  main  point  to  be  insisted  upon 
here,  that  the  Apostle  is  setting  forth  this  as  a 
certainty,  that  if  a  man  will  open  his  eyes  he  will  have 
light  enough.  The  sunshine  is  flooding  the  world.  It 
falls  upon  the  closed  eyelids  of  the  sleepers,  and 
would  fain  gently  lift  them,  that  it  might  enter.  A 
man  needs  nothing  more  than  to  shake  off  the  slumber, 
and  bring  himself  into  the  conscious  presence  of  the 
unseen  glories  that  surround  us,  in  order  to  get  light 
enough  and  to  spare — whether  you  mean  by  light 
knowledge  for  guidance  on  the  path  of  life,  or  whether 
you  mean  by  it  purity  that  shall  scatter  the  darkness 
of  evil  from  the  heart,  or  whether  you  mean  by  it 
the  joy  that  comes  in  the  morning,  radiant  and  fresh 
as  the  sunrise  over  the  Eastern  hills.  '  Awake,  and 
Christ  shall  give  thee  light.' 


326     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS   [ch.v. 

The  miracle  of  Goshen  is  reversed,  in  the  case  of 
many  of  us,  the  land  is  flashing  in  the  sunshine,  but 
within  our  houses  there  is  midnight  darkness,  not 
because  there  is  not  light  around,  but  because  the 
shutters  are  shut.  Oh,  brethren,  it  is  a  solemn  thing 
to  choose  the  darkness  rather  than  the  light.  And 
you  do  that — though  not  consciously,  and  in  so  many 
words,  making  your  election — by  indifference,  by 
neglect,  by  the  direction  of  the  main  current  of  your 
thoughts  and  desires  and  aims  to  perishable  things, 
and  by  the  deeds  that  follow  from  such  a  disposition. 
These  choose  for  you,  and  you,  in  effect,  choose  by 
them. 

I  beseech  you,  do  not  let  Christ's  own  trumpet-call 
fall  upon  your  ears,  as  if  faint  and  far  away,  like  the 
ua welcome  summons  that  comes  to  a  drowsy  man  in 
the  morning.  You  know  that  if,  having  been  called, 
he  makes  up  his  mind  to  lie  a  little  longer,  he  is 
almost  sure  to  fall  more  dead  asleep  than  he  was 
before.  And  if  you  hear,  however  dim,  distantly,  and 
through  my  poor  words,  Christ's  voice  saying  to  you, 
'  Awake !  thou  that  sleepest,'  do  not  neglect  it.  The 
only  safe  course  is  to  spring  up  at  once.  If  thou  dost, 
'  Christ  shall  give  thee  light,'  never  fear.  The  light  is 
all  about  you.  You  only  need  to  open  your  eyes,  and 
it  will  pour  in.  If  you  do  not,  you  surround  yourself 
with  darkness  that  may  be  felt  here,  and  ensures 
for  yourself  a  horror  of  great  darkness  in  the  death 
hereafter. 


REDEEMING  THE  TIME 

*  See,  then,  that  ye  walk  circumspectly,  not  as  fools,  but  as  wise,  redeeming  the 
time,  because  the  days  are  evil.'— Eph.  v.  15, 16. 

Some  of  us  have,  in  all  probability,  very  little  more 
'  time '  to  '  redeem.'  Some  of  us  have,  in  all  probability, 
the  prospect  of  many  years  yet  to  live.  For  both 
classes  my  text  presents  the  best  motto  for  another 
year.  The  most  frivolous  among  us,  I  suppose,  have 
some  thoughts  when  we  step  across  the  conventional 
boundary  that  seems  to  separate  the  unbroken  sequence 
of  moments  into  periods  ;  and  as  you  in  your  business 
take  stock  and  see  how  your  accounts  stand,  so  I  would 
fain,  for  you  and  myself,  make  this  a  moment  in  which 
we  may  see  where  we  are  going,  what  we  are  doing, 
and  how  we  are  using  this  great  gift  of  life. 

My  text  gives  us  the  true  Christian  view  of  time. 
It  tells  us  what  to  do  with  it,  and  urges  by  implication 
certain  motives  for  the  conduct. 

I.  We  have,  first,  what  we  ought  to  think  about 
'  the  time.* 

There  are  two  words  in  the  New  Testament,  both  of 
which  are  translated  time,  but  they  mean  very  different 
things.  One  of  them,  the  more  common,  simply  implies 
the  succession  of  moments  or  periods  ;  the  other,  which 
is  employed  here,  means  rather  a  definite  portion  of 
time  to  which  some  definite  work  or  occurrence  be- 
longs. It  is  translated  sometimes  season,  sometimes 
opportunity.  Both  these  renderings  occur  in  immediate 
proximity  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  where  the 
Apostle  says :  '  As  we  have  therefore  opportunity  let 
us  do  good  to  all  men,  for  in  due  season  we  shall  reap, 
if  we  faint  not.  .  .  .'    And,  again,  it  is  employed  side 

SS7 


328     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  r. 

by  side  with  the  other  word  to  which  I  have  referred, 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  where  we  read,  '  It  is  not 
for  you  to  know  the  times  or  the  seasons ' — the  former 
word  simply  indicating  the  succession  of  moments,  the 
latter  word  indicating  epochs  or  crises  to  which  special 
work  or  events  belong. 

And  so  here  *  redeeming  the  time '  does  not  merely 
moan  making  the  most  of  moments,  but  means  laying 
hold  of,  and  understanding  the  special  significance  of, 
life  as  a  whole,  and  of  each  succeeding  instant  of  it  as 
the  season  for  some  specific  duty.  It  is  not  merely 
'time,*  it  is  '  the  time';  not  merely  the  empty  succession 
of  beats  of  the  pendulum,  but  these  moralised,  as  it 
were,  heightened,  and  having  significance,  because 
each  is  apprehended  as  having  a  special  mission,  and 
affording  an  opportunity  for  a  special  work. 

Now,  there  are  two  aspects  of  that  general  thought, 
on  each  of  which  I  would  touch.  The  Apostle  here 
uses  the  singular  number,  and  speaks  not  of  the  times, 
but  of  '  the  time ' ;  as  if  the  whole  of  life  were  an 
opportunity,  a  season  for  some  one  clear  duty  which 
manifestly  belongs  to  it,  and  is  meant  to  be  done  in  it. 

What  is  that?  There  are  a  great  many  ways  of 
answering  that  question,  but  even  more  important 
perhaps  than  the  way  of  answering  is  the  mood  of 
mind  which  asks  it.  If  we  could  only  get  into  this, 
as  our  habitual  temper  and  disposition,  asking  our- 
selves what  life  is  for,  then  we  should  have  conquered 
nine-tenths  of  our  temptations,  and  all  but  secured 
that  w^e  shall  aim  at  the  purpose  which  thus  clearly 
and  constantly  shines  before  us.  Oh !  if  I  could  get 
some  of  my  friends  here  this  morning,  who  have  never 
really  looked  this  solemn  question  in  the  face,  to  rise 
8,bove  the  mere  accidents  of  their  daily  occupations, 


vs.  15,16]     REDEEMING  THE  TIME  829 

and  to  take  their  orders,  not  from  circumstances,  or 
from  the  people  whom  they  admire  and  imitate,  but  at 
first  hand  from  considering  what  they  really  are  here 
for,  and  why  their  days  in  their  whole  sweep  are  given 
them,  I  should  not  have  spoken  in  vain.  The  sensualist 
answers  the  question  in  one  way,  the  busy  Manchester 
man  in  another,  the  careful,  burdened  mother  in 
another,  the  student  in  another,  the  moralist  in  another. 
But  all  that  is  good  in  each  answer  is  included  in  the 
wider  one,  that  the  end  of  life,  the  purpose  for  which 
*  the  season '  is  granted  us,  is  that  •  we  should  glorify 
God  and  enjoy  Him  for  ever.' 

I  do  not  care  whether  you  say  that  the  end  for  which 
we  live  is  the  salvation  of  our  souls,  or  whether  you 
put  it  in  other  words,  and  say  that  it  is  the  cultivation 
and  perfecting  of  a  Christ-like  and  God-pleasing  char- 
acter, or  whether  you  admit  still  another  aspect,  and 
say  that  it  is  the  intention  of  time  to  prepare  us  for 
that  which  lies  beyond  time.  Time  is  the  lackey  of 
eternity,  and  the  chamberlain  that  opens  the  gates  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  All  these  various  answers  are  at 
bottom  one.  Life  is  ours  mainly  in  order  that,  by  faith 
in  Jesus  Christ,  we  should  struggle,  and  do,  and  by 
struggles,  by  sorrows,  and  by  all  that  befalls  us,  should 
grow  liker  Him,  and  so  fitter  for  the  calm  joys  of  that 
place  where  the  throb  of  the  pendulum  has  ceased,  and 
the  hours  are  stable  and  eternal.  We  live  here  in 
order  to  get  ready  for  living  yonder.  And  we  get 
ready  for  living  yonder,  when  here  we  understand 
that  every  moment  of  life  is  granted  us  for  the  one 
purpose,  which  can  be  pursued  through  all  life — viz. 
the  becoming  liker  our  dear  Lord,  and  the  drinking  in 
to  our  own  hearts  more  of  His  Spirit,  and  moulding 
our  characters  more  in  conformity  with  His  image. 


830     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

That  is  what  my  life  and  yours  are  given  us  for.  If 
we  succeed  in  that,  we  succeed  all  round.  If  we  fail 
in  that,  whatever  else  we  succeed  in,  we  have  failed 
altogether. 

But  then,  remember,  still  further,  the  other  aspect 
in  which  we  can  look  at  this  thought.  That  ultimate, 
all-embracing  end  is  reached  through  a  multitude  of 
nearer  and  intermediate  ones.  Whilst  life,  as  a  whole, 
is  the  season  for  learning  to  know  and  for  possessing 
God,  life  is  broken  up  into  smaller  portions  and  periods, 
each  of  which  has  some  special  duty  appropriate  to  it 
and  a  '  lesson  for  the  day.' 

Now  many  of  us,  who  entirely  agree,  theoretically, 
in  saying  that  all  life  is  granted  for  this  highest  pur- 
pose, go  wrong  here  and  fail  to  discern  the  significance 
of  single  moments.  To-day  is  always  commonplace ; 
it  is  yesterday  that  is  beautiful,  and  to-morrow  that  is 
full  of  possibilities,  to  the  vulgar  mind.  But  to-day  is 
common  and  low.  There  are  mountains  ahead  and 
mountains  behind,  purple  with  distance  and  radiant 
with  sunshine,  and  the  sky  bends  over  them  and  seems 
to  touch  their  crests.  But  here,  on  the  spot  where  we 
stand,  life  seems  flat  and  mean,  and  far  away  from 
the  heavens.  We  admit  the  meaning  of  life  taken 
altogether,  but  it  is  very  hard  to  break  up  that  recogni- 
tion into  fragments,  and  to  feel  the  worth  of  these 
fleeting  moments  which,  just  because  they  are  here, 
seem  to  be  of  small  account.  So  we  forget  that  life  is 
only  the  aggregate  of  small  present  instants,  and  that 
the  hour  is  sixty  times  sixty  insignificant  seconds,  and 
the  day  twenty-four  brief  hours,  and  the  year  365 
commonplace  days,  and  the  life  threescore  years  and 
ten.  Brethren,  carry  your  theoretical  recognition  of 
the  greatness  and  solemnity  of  the  purposes  for  which 


vs.15.16j     REDEEMING  THE  TIME  831 

life  has  been  given  here  into  each  of  the  moments  of  the 
passing  day,  and  you  will  find  that  there  is  nothing  so 
elastic  as  time ;  and  that  you  can  crowd  into  a  day  as 
much  as  a  languid  thousand  years  do  sometimes  hold, 
of  sacrifice  and  service,  of  holy  joys,  and  of  likeness  to 
Jesus  Christ.  He  who  has  learned  that  all  the  moments 
are  heavy  with  significance,  and  pregnant  with  immortal 
issues,  he,  too,  in  some  measure  may  share  in  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  timeless  God,  and  to  Him  '  one  day  may 
be  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one 
day.'  It  is  not  the  beat  of  the  pendulum  or  the  tick  of 
the  clock  that  measure  time,  but  it  is  the  deeds  which 
we  crowd  into  it,  and  the  feelings  and  thoughts  which 
it  ministers  to  us.  This  passing  life  draws  all  its 
importance  from  the  boundless  eternal  issues  to  which 
it  leads.  Every  little  puddle  on  the  paving-stones  this 
morning,  a  quarter  of  an  inch  broad  and  a  film  deep, 
will  be  mirroring  bright  sunshine,  and  blue  with  the 
reflected  heaven.  And  so  we  may  make  the  little  drop 
of  our  lives  radiant  with  the  image  of  God,  and  bright 
with  the  certainties  of  immortality. 

II.  Now,  note  secondly,  how  to  make  the  most  of  the 
season. 

'  Redeeming  the  time,*  says  the  Apostle.  The  figure 
is  very  simple  and  natural,  and  has  only  been  felt  to 
be  difficult  and  obscure,  because  people  have  tried  to 
ride  the  metaphor  further  than  it  was  meant.  The 
questions  of  who  is  the  seller  and  what  is  the  price  do 
not  enter  into  the  Apostle's  mind  at  all.  Metaphors 
are  not  to  be  driven  so  far  as  that.  We  have  to  confine 
ourselves  to  the  simple  thought  that  there  is  a  need  for 
making  the  opportunity  which  is  given  truly  our  own ; 
and  that  that  can  only  be  done  by  giving  something  in 
exchange  for  it.    That  is  the  notion  of  purchase,  is  it 


832    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.v. 

not?  Acquisition,  by  giving  something  else.  Thus, 
says  Paul,  you  have  to  buy  the  opportunity  which  time 
affords  us. 

That  is  to  say,  to  begin  with,  life  gives  us  opportuni- 
ties and  no  more.  We  may,  in  and  through  it,  become 
wise,  good,  pure,  happy,  noble,  Christ-like,  or  we  may 
not.  The  opportunity  is  there,  swinging,  as  it  were,  in 
vacuo.  Lay  hold  of  it,  says  he,  and  turn  it  into  more 
than  an  opportunity — even  an  actuality  and  a  fact. 

And  how  is  that  to  be  done?  We  have  to  give 
something  away,  if  we  get  the  opportunity  for  our 
very  own.  What  have  we  to  give  away  ?  Well, 
mainly  the  lower  ends  for  which  the  moment  might 
serve.  These  have  to  be  surrendered — sometimes 
abandoned  altogether,  always  rigidly  restricted  and 
kept  in  utter  subordination  to  the  highest  purposes. 
To-day  is  given  us  mainly  that  we  miay  learn  to  know 
God  better,  and  to  love  Him  more,  and  to  serve  Him 
more  joyfully.  Our  daily  duties  are  given  us  for  the 
same  purpose.  But  if  we  go  about  them  without 
thinking  of  God  or  the  highest  ends  which  life  is 
meant  to  serve,  then  we  shall  certainly  lose  the  highest 
ends,  and  an  opportunity  will  go  past  us  unimproved. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  whilst  we  follow  our  daily 
business  for  the  sake  of  legitimate  temporal  gain,  we 
see,  above  that,  the  aspect  of  daily  life  as  educating 
in  all  Christian  nobleness  and  lofty  thoughts  and 
purposes,  then  we  shall  have  given  away  the  lower 
ends  for  the  sake  of  attaining  the  higher.  You  live, 
suppose,  to  found  a  business,  to  become  masters  of 
your  trade,  to  gain  wisdom  and  knowledge,  to  establish 
for  yourselves  a  position  amongst  your  fellow-men, 
to  cultivate  your  character  so  as  to  grow  in  wisdom 
and  purity,  apart  from  God.     Or  you  live  in  order  to 


vs.  15,16]     REDEEMING  THE  TIME  333 

win  affection  and  move  thankfully  in  the  heaven  of 
loving  associations  in  your  home,  amongst  your  chil- 
dren. Or  you  live  for  the  sake  of  carrying  some  lower 
but  real  good  amongst  men.  Many  of  these  ends  are 
beautiful  and  noble,  and  necessary  for  the  cultivation 
and  discharge  of  the  various  duties  and  relationships 
of  life;  but  unless  they  are  all  kept  secondary,  and 
there  towers  above  them  this  other,  life  is  wasted.  If 
life  is  not  to  be  wasted,  they  must  be  bartered  for 
the  higher,  and  we  must  recognise  that  to  give  all 
things  for  the  sake  of  Christ  and  His  love  is  wise 
merchandise  and  good  exchange.  'What  things  were 
gain  to  me,  those  I  counted  loss  for  Christ.  Yea! 
doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things  but  loss  that  I  may 
win  Him  and  be  found  of  Him.'  You  must  barter  the 
lower  if  you  are  to  secure  the  higher  ends  for  which 
life  is  the  appointed  season. 

And  then,  still  more  minutely,  my  text  gives  us 
another  suggestion  about  this  •  redeeming  the  time.' 
'  See,  then,'  says  the  Apostle,  '  that  ye  walk  circum- 
spectly.' The  word  rendered  circumspectly  might 
better,  perhaps,  be  translated  in  some  such  way  as 
*  strictljs'  '  rigidly,'  *  accurately,'  '  punctiliously.'  As  I 
take  it,  it  is  to  be  connected  with  the  '  walk,'  and  not 
with  the  '  see,  then,'  as  the  Revised  Version  does. 

So  here  is  a  practical  direction,  walk  strictly, 
accurately,  looking  to  your  feet ;  as  a  man  would  do 
who  was  upon  what  they  call  in  the  Alps  an  arrSte. 
Suppose  a  narrow  ridge  of  snow  piled  on  the  top  of  a 
ledge  of  rock,  with  a  precipice  of  5000  feet  on  either 
side,  and  a  cornice  of  snow  hanging  over  empty  space. 
The  climber  puts  his  alpenstock  before  his  foot,  he 
tests  with  his  foot  before  he  rests  his  weight,  for  a, 
false  step  and  down  he  goes  1 


334     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

•  See  tliat  you  walk  circumspectly,'  rigidly,  accurately, 
punctiliously.  Live  by  law — that  is  to  say,  live  by 
principles  which  imply  duties;  for  to  live  by  inclination 
is  ruin.  The  only  safety  is,  look  to  your  feet  and  look 
to  your  road,  and  restrain  yourselves, '  and  so  redeem 
the  time.' 

There  is  something  else  to  look  to.  Feet?  Yes! 
Road  ?  Yes !  But  also  look  to  your  guide.  Tread  in 
Christ's  footsteps,  '  follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever  He 
goeth.'  Make  Him  the  pattern  and  example,  and  then 
you  shall  walk  safely;  and  the  path  will  carry  you 
right  into  '  His  presence  where  there  is  fulness  of  joy.* 
No  great,  noble,  right,  blessed  life  is  lived  without  rigid 
self-control,  self-denial,  and  self-crucifixion.  Do  not 
fancy  that  that  means  the  absence  of  joy  and  spon- 
taneity. '  I  will  walk  at  liberty  for  I  keep  Thy  precepts.* 
Hedges  are  blessings  when,  on  the  other  side,  there  are 
bottomless  swamps  of  poisonous  miasma,  into  which  if 
a  man  ventures  he  will  either  drown  or  be  plague- 
stricken.  The  narrow  way  that  leads  to  life  is  the  way 
of  peace,  just  because  it  is  a  way  of  restrictions. 
Better  to  walk  on  the  narrowest  path  that  leads  to  the 
City  than  to  be  chartered  libertines,  wandering  any- 
where at  our  own  bitter  wills,  and  finding  '  no  end,  in 
devious  mazes  lost.'  Freedom  consists  in  obeying 
from  the  heart  the  restriction  of  love ;  and  walking 
punctiliously. 

III.  Lastly,  note  the  motives  for  this  course. 

The  Apostle  says,  '  see  that  ye  walk  strictly,  not  as 
fools  but  as  wise,'  That  is  to  say,  such  limitation, 
which  buys  the  opportunity  and  uses  it  for  the 
highest  purposes,  is  the  only  true  wisdom.  If  you  take 
the  mean,  miserable,  partial,  fleeting  purposes  for  which 
some  of  us,  alas,  are  squandering  our  lives,  and  contrast 


vs.  15,16]     REDEEMING  THE  TIME  835 

these  with  the  great,  perfect,  all-satisfying,  blessed, 
and  eternal  end  for  which  it  was  given  us,  how  can  wo 
escape  being  convicted  of  folly?  One  day,  dear  friends, 
it  will  be  found  out  that  the  virgins  that  were  not 
ready  when  the  Lord  came  were  the  foolish  ones.  One 
day  it  will  be  asked  of  you  and  of  me, '  What  did  you 
do  with  the  life  which  I  gave  you,  that  you  might  know 
Me  ? '  And  if  we  have  only  the  answer,  '  O  Lord !  I 
founded  a  big  business  in  Manchester — I  made  a  for- 
tune— I  wrote  a  clever  book,  that  was  most  favourably 
reviewed — I  brought  up  a  family' — the  only  thing  fit  to 
be  said  to  us  is,  '  Thou  fool!'  The  only  wisdom  is  the 
wisdom  that  secures  the  end  for  which  life  was  given. 

Then  there  is  another  motive  here.  '  Redeeming  the 
time  because  the  days  are  evil.'  That  is  singular. 
'  The  days '  are  *  the  time,'  and  yet  they  are  *  evil '  days, 
which  being  translated  into  other  words  is  just  this — 
we  are  to  make  a  definite  effort  to  keep  in  view,  and 
to  effect,  the  purposes  for  which  all  the  days  of  our 
lives  are  given  us,  because  these  days  have  in  them- 
selves a  tendency  to  draw  us  away  from  the  true  path 
and  to  blind  us  as  to  their  real  meaning.  The  world  is 
full  of  possibilities  of  good  and  evil,  and  the  same  day 
which,  in  one  aspect,  is  the  '  season '  for  serving  God  is, 
in  another  aspect,  an  'evil'  day  which  may  draw  us 
away  from  Him.  And  if  we  do  not  put  out  manly 
effort,  it  certainly  will  do  so.  The  ocean  is  meant  to 
bear  the  sailor  to  his  port,  but  from  the  waves  rise  up 
fair  forms,  siren  voices,  with  sweet  harps  and  bright 
eyes  that  tempt  the  weary  mariner  to  his  destruction. 
And  the  days  which  maj^  be  occasions  for  our  getting 
nearer  God,  if  we  let  them  work  their  will  upon  us, 
will  be  evil  days  which  draw  us  away  from  Him. 

Let  me  add  one  last  motive  which  is  not  stated  in  my 


836     EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  v. 

text,  but  is  involved  in  the  very  idea  of  opportunity  or 
season — viz.  that  the  time  for  the  high  and  noble 
purposes  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  is  rigidly 
limited  and  bounded ;  and  once  past  is  irrevocable. 
The  old,  wise  mythological  story  tells  us  that  Occasion 
is  bald  behind,  and  is  to  be  grasped  by  the  forelock.  The 
moment  that  is  past  had  in  it  wonderful  possibilities 
for  us.  If  we  did  not  grasp  them  with  promptitude  and 
decision  they  have  gone  for  ever.  You  may  as  well  try 
to  bring  back  the  water  that  has  been  sucked  over 
Niagara,  and  churned  into  white  foam  at  its  base,  as  to 
recall  the  wasted  opportunities.  They  stand  all  along 
the  course  of  our  years,  solemn  monuments  of  our 
unfaithfulness,  and  none  of  them  can  ever  return 
again.  Life  is  full  of  tpo-lates ;  that  sad  sound  that 
moans  through  the  roofless  ruins  of  the  past,  like  the 
wind  through  some  deserted  temple.  '  Too  late,  too 
late  ;  ye  cannot  enter  now.'  '  The  sluggard  will  not 
plough  by  reason  of  the  cold,  therefore  he  shall  beg  in 
harvest  and  have  nothing.'  Oh !  let  us  see  to  it  that 
we  wring  out  of  the  passing  moments  their  highest 
possibilities  of  noblest  good.  Let  us  begin  to  live  ;  for 
only  he  who  lives  to  God  really  lives.  Life  is  given  to 
us  that  we  may  know  Jesus  Christ — trust  Him,  love 
Him,  serve  Him,  be  like  Him.  That  is  the  pearl  which, 
if  we  bring  up  from  the  sea  of  time,  we  shall  not  have 
been  cast  in  vain  into  its  stormy  waves.  Do  you  take 
care  that  this  new  year  which  is  dawning  upon  us  go 
not  to  join  the  many  wasted  years  that  lie  desolate 
behind  us,  but  let  us  all  see  to  it  that  the  flood  which 
sweeps  us  and  it  away  bears  us  straight  to  God,  Who  is 
our  home.  '  Now  is  the  accepted  time,  now  is  the  day 
of  salvation.' 


•THE  PANOPLY  OF  GOD 

'Take  nnto  you  the  whole  armour  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  withstand  In 
the  evil  day,  and  having  done  all,  to  stand.'— EPH.  vi.  13. 

The  military  metapTior  of  which  this  verse  is  the  be- 
ginning was  obviously  deeply  imprinted  on  Paul's 
mind.  It  is  found  in  a  comparatively  incomplete  form 
in  his  earliest  epistle,  the  first  to  the  Thessalonians,  in 
which  the  children  of  the  day  are  exhorted  to  put  on 
the  breastplate  of  faith  and  love,  and  for  a  helmet  the 
hope  of  salvation.  It  reappears,  in  a  slightly  varied 
form,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  where  those  whose 
salvation  is  nearer  than  when  they  believed,  are  ex- 
horted, because  the  day  is  at  hand,  to  cast  off,  as  it 
were,  their  night-gear,  and  to  put  on  the  *  armour  of 
light ' ;  and  here,  in  this  Epistle  of  the  Captivity,  it  is 
most  fully  developed.  The  Roman  legionary,  to  whom 
Paul  was  chained,  here  sits  all  unconsciously  for  his 
portrait,  every  detail  of  which  is  pressed  by  Paul  into 
the  service  of  his  vivid  imagination ;  the  virtues 
and  graces  of  the  Christian  character,  which  are  '  the 
armour  of  light,'  are  suggested  to  the  Apostle  by  the 
weapon  which  the  soldier  by  his  side  wore.  The 
vulgarest  and  most  murderous  implements  assume 
a  new  character  when  looked  upon  with  the  eyes  of 
a  poet  and  a  Christian.  Our  present  text  constitutes 
the  general  introduction  to  the  great  picture  which 
follows,  of  *  the  panoply  of  God.' 

I.  We  must  be  ready  for  times  of  special  assaults 
from  evil. 

Most  of  us  feel  but  little  the  stern  reality  underlying 
the  metaphor,  that  the  whole  Christian  life  is  warfare, 
but  that  in  that  warfare  there  are  crises,  seasons  of 

Y 


388    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

special  danger.  The  interpretation  which  makes  the 
'evil  day'  co-extensive  with  the  time  of  life  destroys 
the  whole  emphasis  of  the  passage:  whilst  all  days  are 
days  of  warfare,  there  will  be,  as  in  some  prolonged 
siege,  periods  of  comparative  quiet;  and  again,  days 
when  all  the  cannon  belch  at  once,  and  scaling  ladders 
are  reared  on  every  side  of  the  fortress.  In  a  long 
winter  there  are  days  sunny  and  calm  followed,  as 
they  were  preceded,  by  days  when  all  the  winds  are  let 
loose  at  once.  For  us,  such  times  of  special  danger  to 
Christian  character  may  arise  from  temporal  vicissi- 
tudes. Joy  and  prosperity  are  as  sure  to  occasion 
them  as  are  sorrows,  for  to  Paul  the  'evil  day'  is  that 
which  especially  threatens  moral  and  spiritual  charac- 
ter, and  these  may  be  as  much  damaged  by  the  bright 
sunshine  of  prosperity  as  by  the  midwinter  of  adver- 
sity, just  as  fierce  sunshine  may  be  as  fatal  as  killing 
frost.  They  may  also  arise,  without  any  such  change 
in  circumstances,  from  some  temptation  coming  with 
more  than  ordinary  force,  and  directed  with  terrible 
accuracy  to  our  weakest  point. 

These  evil  days  are  ever  wont  to  come  on  us  sud- 
denly ;  they  are  heralded  by  no  storm  signals  and  no 
falling  barometer.  We  may  be  like  soldiers  sitting 
securely  round  their  camp  fire,  till  all  at  once  bullets 
begin  to  fall  among  them.  The  tiger's  roar  is  the  first 
signal  of  its  leap  from  the  jungle.  Our  position  in  the 
world,  our  ignorance  of  the  future,  the  heaped-up 
magazines  of  combustibles  within,  needing  only  a 
spark,  all  lay  us  open  to  unexpected  assaults,  and  the 
temptation  comes  stealthily,  *as  a  thief  in  the  night.' 
Nothing  is  so  certain  as  the  unexpected.  For  these 
reasons,  then,  because  the  'evil  day'  will  certainly 
come,  because  it  may  come  at  any  time,  and  because  it 


V.13]         *THE  PANOPLY  OF  GOD'  839 

is  most  likely  to  come  '  when  we  look  not  for  it,'  it  is 
the  dictate  of  plain  common  sense  to  be  prepared.  If 
the  good  man  of  the  house  had  known  at  what  hour 
the  thief  would  have  come,  he  would  have  watched ; 
but  he  would  have  been  a  wiser  man  if  he  had  watched 
all  the  more,  because  he  did  not  know  at  what  hour  the 
thief  would  come. 

II.  To  withstand  these  we  must  be  armed  against 
them  before  they  come. 

The  main  point  of  the  exhortation  is  this  previous 
preparation.  It  is  clear  enough  that  it  is  no  time  to  fly 
to  our  weapons  when  the  enemy  is  upon  us.  Alder- 
shot,  not  the  battlefield,  is  the  place  for  learning 
strategy.  Belshazzar  was  sitting  at  his  drunken  feast 
while  the  Persians  were  marching  on  Babylon,  and  in 
the  night  he  was  slain.  When  great  crises  arise  in  a 
nation's  history,  some  man  whose  whole  life  has 
been  preparing  him  for  the  hour  starts  to  the  front 
and  does  the  needed  work.  If  a  sailor  put  off  learning 
navigation  till  the  wind  was  howling  and  a  reef  lay 
ahead,  his  corpse  would  be  cast  on  the  cruel  rocks.  It 
is  well  not  to  be  '  over-exquisite,'  to  cast  the  fashion  of 
*  uncertain  evils,'  but  certain  ones  cannot  be  too  care- 
fully anticipated,  nor  too  sedulously  prepared  for. 

The  manner  in  which  this  preparation  is  to  be  car- 
ried out  is  distinctly  marked  here.  The  armour  is  to 
be  put  on  before  the  conflict  begins.  Now,  without 
anticipating  what  will  more  properly  come  in  con- 
sidering subsequent  details,  we  may  notice  that  such  a 
previous  assumption  implies  mainly  two  things — a 
previous  familiarity  with  God's  truth,  and  a  previous 
exercise  of  Christian  virtues.  As  to  the  former,  the 
subsequent  context  speaks  of  taking  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God,  and  of  having  the 


340    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

loins  girt  with  truth,  which  may  be  objective  truth. 
As  to  the  latter,  we  need  not  elaborate  the  Apostle's 
main  thought  that  resistance  to  sudden  temptations  is 
most  vigorous  when  a  man  is  accustomed  to  goodness. 
One  of  the  prophets  treats  it  as  being  all  but  impossible 
that  they  who  have  been  accustomed  to  evil  shall  learn 
to  do  well,  and  it  is  at  least  not  less  impossible  that  they 
who  have  been  accustomed  to  do  well  shall  learn  to  do 
evil.  Souls  which  habitually  walk  in  the  clear  spaces 
of  the  bracing  air  on  the  mountains  of  God  will  less 
easily  be  tempted  down  to  the  shut-in  valleys  where 
malaria  reigns.  The  positive  exercise  of  Christian 
graces  tends  to  weaken  the  force  of  temptation.  A 
mind  occupied  with  these  has  no  room  for  it.  Higher 
tastes  are  developed  which  makes  the  poison  sweetness 
of  evil  unsavoury,  and  just  as  the  Israelites  hungered 
for  the  strong,  coarse  -  smelling  leeks  and  garlic  of 
Egypt,  and  therefore  loathed  '  this  light  bread,'  so  they 
whose  palates  have  been  accustomed  to  manna  will 
have  little  taste  for  leeks  and  garlic.  The  mental  and 
spiritual  activity  involved  in  the  habitual  exercise  of 
Christian  virtues  will  go  far  to  make  the  soul  unassail- 
able by  evil.  A  man,  busily  occupied,  as  the  Apostle 
would  have  us  to  be,  may  be  tempted  by  the  devil, 
though  less  frequently  the  more  he  is  thus  occupied ; 
but  one  who  has  no  such  occupations  and  interests 
tempts  the  devil.  If  our  lives  are  inwardly  and  secretly 
honeycombed  with  evil,  only  a  breath  will  be  needed  to 
throw  down  the  structure.  It  is  possible  to  become 
so  accustomed  to  the  calm  delights  of  goodness,  that 
it  would  need  a  moral  miracle  to  make  a  man  fall  into 
sin. 

III.  To  be  armed  with  this  armour,  we  must  get  it 
from  God. 


T.  13]         « THE  PANOPLY  OF  GOD'  341 

Though  it  consists  mainly  of  habitudes  and  disposi- 
tions of  our  own  minds,  none  the  less  have  we  to 
receive  these  from  above.  It  is  '  the  panoply  of  God,' 
therefore  we  are  to  be  endued  with  it,  not  by  exercises 
in  our  own  strength,  but  by  dependence  on  Him.  In 
old  days,  before  a  squire  was  knighted,  he  had  to  keep 
a  vigil  in  the  chaijel  of  the  castle,  and  through  the 
hours  of  darkness  to  watch  his  armour  and  lift  his  soul 
to  God,  and  we  shall  never  put  on  the  armour  of 
light  unless  in  silence  we  draw  near  to  Him  who 
teaches  our  hands  to  war  and  our  fingers  to  fight. 
Communion  with  Christ,  and  only  communion  with 
Christ,  receives  from  Him  the  life  which  enables  us  to 
repel  the  diseases  of  our  spirits.  What  He  imparts  to 
those  who  thus  wait  upon  Him,  and  to  them  only,  is 
the  Spirit  which  helps  their  infirmities  and  clothes 
their  undefended  nakedness  with  a  coat  of  mail.  If 
we  go  forth  to  war  with  evil,  clothed  and  armed  only 
with  what  we  can  provide,  we  shall  surely  be  worsted 
in  the  fray.  If  we  go  forth  into  the  world  of  struggle 
from  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High,  'no  weapon 
that  is  formed  against  us  shall  prosper,'  and  we  shall 
be  more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loved  us. 

But  waiting  on  God  to  receive  our  weapons  from 
Him  is  but  part  of  what  is  needful  for  our  equipment. 
It  is  we  who  have  to  gird  our  loins  and  put  on  the 
breast]3late,  and  shoe  our  feet,  and  take  the  shield  of 
faith,  and  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit.  The  cumbrous  armour  of  old  days  could  only 
be  put  on  by  the  help  of  another  pulling  straps,  and 
fixing  buckles,  atid  lifting  and  bracing  heavy  shields 
on  anus,  and  fastening  helmets  upon  heads ;  but  we 
have,  by  our  own  effort,  to  clothe  ourselves  with 
God's  great  gift,  which  is  of  no  use  to  us,  and  is  in  no 


342    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

real  sense  ours,  unless  we  do.  It  takes  no  small  effort 
to  keep  ourselves  in  the  attitude  of  dependence  and 
receptivity,  without  which  none  of  the  great  gifts  of 
God  come  to  us,  and,  least  of  all,  the  habitual  practice 
of  Christian  virtues.  The  soldier  who  rushed  into  the 
fight,  leaving  armour  and  arms  huddled  together  on 
the  ground,  would  soon  fall,  and  God's  giving  avails 
nothing  for  our  defence  unless  there  is  also  our  taking. 
It  is  the  wof  ul  want  of  taking  the  things  that  are  freely 
given  to  us  of  God,  and  of  making  our  own  what  by 
His  gift  is  our  own,  that  is  mainly  responsible  for  the 
defeats  of  which  we  are  all  conscious.  Looking  back 
on  our  own  evil  days,  we  must  all  be  aware  that  our 
defeats  have  mainly  come  from  one  or  other  of  the  two 
errors  which  lie  so  near  us  all,  and  which  are  inti- 
mately connected  with  each  other — the  one  being  that 
of  fighting  in  our  own  strength,  and  the  other  being 
that  of  leaving  unused  our  God-given  power. 

IV.  The  issue  of  successful  resistance  is  increased 
firmness  of  footing. 

If  we  are  able  to  '  withstand  in  the  evil  day,'  we  shall 
'  stand '  more  securely  when  the  evil  day  has  stormed 
itself  away.  If  we  keep  erect  in  the  shock  of  battle, 
we  shall  stand  more  secure  when  the  wild  charge  has 
been  beaten  back.  The  sea  hurls  tons  of  water  against 
the  slender  lighthouse  on  the  rock,  and  if  it  stands,  the 
smashing  of  the  waves  consolidates  it.  The  reward  of 
firm  resistance  is  increased  firmness.  As  the  Red 
Indians  used  to  believe  that  the  strength  of  the  slain 
enemies  whom  they  had  scalped  passed  into  their  arms, 
so  we  may  have  power  developed  by  conflict,  and  we 
shall  more  fully  understand,  and  more  passionately 
believe  in,  the  principles  and  truths  which  have  served 
us  in  past  fights.    David  would  not  wear  Saul's  armour 


V.13]       « THE  GIRDLE  OF  TRUTH'         343 

because,  as  he  said,  'I  have  not  proved  it,'  and  the 
Christian  who  has  come  victoriously  through  one 
struggle  should  be  ready  to  say,  'I  have  proved 
it';  we  have  the  word  of  the  Lord,  which  is  tried,  to 
trust  to,  and  not  we  only,  but  generations,  have  tested 
it,  and  it  has  stood  the  tests.  Therefore,  it  is  not  for 
us  to  hesitate  as  to  the  worth  of  our  weapons,  or  to 
doubt  that  they  are  more  than  sufficient  for  every 
conflict  which  we  may  be  called  upon  to  wage. 

The  text  plainly  implies  that  all  our  life  long  we  shall 
be  in  danger  of  sudden  assaults.  It  does  contemplate 
victory  in  the  evil  day,  but  it  also  contemplates  that 
after  we  have  withstood,  we  have  still  to  stand  and  be 
ready  for  another  attack  to-morrow.  Our  life  here  is, 
and  must  still  be,  a  continual  warfare.  Peace  is  not 
bought  by  any  victories  ;  *  There  is  no  discharge  in  that 
war.'  Like  the  ten  thousand  Greeks  who  fought  their 
way  home  through  clouds  of  enemies  from  the  heart  of 
Asia,  we  are  never  safe  till  we  come  to  the  mountain- 
top,  where  we  can  cry,  '  The  Sea ! '  But  though  all  our 
paths  lead  us  through  enemies,  we  have  Jesus,  who 
has  conquered  them  all,  with  us,  and  our  hearts  should 
not  fail  so  long  as  we  can  hear  His  brave  voice  encour- 
aging us:  'In  the  world  ye  have  tribulation,  but  be  of 
good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world.' 


•THE  GIRDLE  OF  TRUTH* 

•  stand,  therefore,  having  girded  your  loins  with  tmth.*— Eph.  vi.  14  (R.V.). 

The  general  exhortation  here  points  to  the  habitual 
attitude  of  the  Christian  soldier.  However  many  con- 
flicts he  may  have  waged,  he  is  still  to  be  ever  ready 


344    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

for  fresh  assaults,  for  in  regard  to  them  he  may  be 
quite  sure  that  to-morrow  will  bring  its  own  share  of 
them,  and  that  the  evil  day  is  never  left  behind  so  long 
as  days  still  last.  That  general  exhortation  is  followed 
by  clauses  which  are  sometimes  said  to  be  cotempo- 
raneous  with  it,  and  to  be  definitions  of  the  way  in 
which  it  is  to  be  accomplished,  but  they  are  much 
rather  statements  of  what  is  to  be  done  before  the 
soldier  takes  his  stand.  He  is  to  be  fully  equipped 
first:  he  is  to  take  up  his  position  second.  We  may 
note  that,  in  all  the  list  of  his  equipment,  there  is  but 
one  weapon  of  offence — the  sword  of  the  Spirit;  all 
the  rest  are  defensive  weapons.  The  girdle,  which  is 
the  first  specified,  is  not  properly  a  weapon  at  all,  but 
it  comes  first  because  the  belt  keeps  all  the  other  parts 
of  the  armour  in  place,  and  gives  agility  to  the  wearer. 
Having  girded  your  loins  (R.V.)  is  better  than  having 
your  loins  girded  (A.V.),  as  bringing  out  more  fully 
that  the  assumption  of  the  belt  is  the  soldier's  own 
doing. 

I.  We  must  be  braced  up  if  we  are  to  fight. 

Concentration  and  tension  of  power  is  an  absolute 
necessity  for  any  effort,  no  matter  how  poor  may  be 
the  aims  to  which  it  is  directed,  and  what  is  needed 
for  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  lowest  transient 
successes  will  surely  not  be  less  indispensable  in  the 
highest  forms  of  life.  If  a  poor  runner  for  a  wreath  of 
parsley  or  of  laurel  cannot  hope  to  win  the  fading  prize 
unless  all  his  powers  are  strained  to  the  uttermost, 
the  Christian  athlete  has  still  more  certainly  to  run,  so 
as  the  racer  has  to  do,  '  that  he  may  obtain.'  Loose- 
flowing  robes  are  caught  by  every  thorn  by  the  way, 
and  a  soul  which  is  not  girded  up  is  sure  to  be  hindered 
in  its  course,    '  This  one  thing  I  do '  is  the  secret  of  all 


v.u]       « THE  GIRDLE  OF  TRUTH'         345 

successful  doing,  and  obedience  to  the  command  of 
Jesus,  '  let  your  loins  be  girded  about,'  is  indispensable, 
if  we  would  avoid  polluting  contact  with  evil.  His 
other  command  associated  with  it  will  never  be  accom- 
plished without  it.  The  lamps  will  not  be  burning 
unless  the  loins  are  girt.  The  men  who  scatter  their 
loves  and  thoughts  over  a  wide  space,  and  to  whom 
the  discipline  Trhich  confines  their  energies  within 
definite  channels  is  distasteful,  are  destined  to  be 
failures  in  the  struggle  of  life.  It  is  better  to  have 
our  lives  running  between  narrow  banks,  and  so  to 
have  a  scour  in  the  stream,  than  to  have  them  spread- 
ing wide  and  shallow,  with  no  driving  force  in  all  the 
useless  expanse.  Such  concentration  and  bracing  of 
oneself  up  is  needful,  if  any  of  the  rest  of  the  great 
exhortations  which  follow  are  to  be  fulfilled. 

It  may  be  that  Paul  here  has  haunting  his  memory 
our  Lord's  words  which  we  have  just  quoted  ;  and,  in 
any  case,  he  is  in  beautiful  accord  with  his  brother 
Peter,  who  begins  all  the  exhortations  of  his  epistle 
with  the  words,  'Wherefore,  girding  up  the  loins  of 
your  mind,  be  sober,  and  set  your  minds  perfectly  upon 
the  grace  that  is  to  be  brought  unto  you  at  the  revela- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ.'  Peter,  indeed,  is  not  thinking  of 
the  soldier's  belt,  but  he  is,  no  doubt,  remembering 
many  a  time  when,  in  the  toils  of  the  fishing-boat,  he 
had  to  tighten  his  robes  round  his  waist  to  prepare  for 
tugging  at  the  oar,  and  he  feels  that  such  concentration 
is  needful  if  a  Christian  life  is  ever  to  be  sober,  and  to 
have  its  hope  set  perfectly  on  Christ  and  His  grace. 

II.  The  girdle  is  to  be  truth. 

The  question  immediately  arises  as  to  whether  truth 
here  means  objective  truth — the  truth  of  the  Gospel, 
or  subjective  truth,  or,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  say, 


34G    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [oh.vi. 

truthfulness.  It  would  seem  that  the  former  significa- 
tion is  rather  included  in  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  which 
is  the  word  of  God,  and  it  is  best  to  regard  the  phrase 
'with  (literally  "in")  truth'  here  as  having  its  ordi- 
nary meaning,  of  which  we  may  take  as  examples  the 
phrases, '  the  unleavened  bread  of  sincerity  and  truth ' ; 
'love  rejoiceth  not  in  unrighteousness,  but  rejoice tli 
with  the  truth';  'whom  I  love  in  truth.'  Absolute 
sincerity  and  transparent  truthfulness  may  well  be 
regarded  as  the  girdle  which  encloses  and  keeps  secure 
every  other  Christian  grace  and  virtue. 

We  do  not  need  to  go  far  to  find  a  slight  tinge  of 
unreality  marring  the  Christian  life ;  we  have  only  to 
scrutinise  our  own  experiences  to  detect  some  tendency 
to  affectation,  to  saying  a  little  more  than  is  quite  true, 
even  in  our  sincerest  worship.  And  we  cannot  but 
recognise  that  in  all  Christian  communities  there  is 
present  an  element  of  conventionalism  in  their  prayers, 
and  that  often  the  public  expression  of  religious 
emotions  goes  far  beyond  the  realities  of  feeling  in  the 
worshippers.  In  fact,  terrible  as  the  acknowledgment 
maybe,  we  shall  be  blind  if  we  do  not  recognise  that  the 
average  Christianity  of  this  day  suffers  from  nothing 
more  than  it  does  from  the  lack  of  this  transparent 
sincerity,  and  of  absolute  correspondence  between 
inward  fact  and  outward  expression.  Types  of  Chris- 
tianity which  make  much  of  emotion  are,  of  course, 
specially  exposed  to  such  a  danger,  but  those  which 
make  least  of  it  are  not  exempt,  and  we  all  need  to  lay 
to  heart,  far  more  seriously  than  we  ordinarily  do,  that 
God  '  desires  truth  in  the  outward  parts.'  The  sturdy 
English  moralist  who  proclaimed  'Clear  your  mind  of 
cant'  as  the  first  condition  of  attaining  wisdom,  was 
not  so  very  far  from  Paul's  point  of  view  in  our  text, 


T.U]       « THE  GIRDLE  OF  TRUTH'  S47 

but  his  exhortation  covered  but  a  small  section  of  the 
Apostle's. 

This  absolute  sincerity  is  hard  to  attain,  and  still 
harder  to  retain.  Hideous  as  the  fact  of  posing  or 
attitudinising  in  our  religion  may  be,  it  is  one  that 
comes  very  easily  to  us  all,  and,  when  it  comes,  spreads 
fast  and  spoils  everything.  Just  as  the  legionary's 
armour  was  held  in  its  place  by  the  girdle,  and  if  that 
worked  loose  or  was  carelessly  fastened,  the  breast- 
plate would  be  sure  to  get  out  of  position,  so  all  the 
subsequent  graces  largely  depend  for  their  vigorous 
exercise  on  the  prime  virtue  of  truthfulness.  Righteous- 
ness and  faith  will  be  weakened  by  the  fatal  taint  of 
insincerity,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  conscious  truthful- 
ness will  give  strength  to  the  whole  man.  Braced  up 
and  concentrated,  our  powers  for  all  service  and  for  all 
conflict  will  be  increased.  'The  bond  of  perfectness' 
is,  no  doubt,  'Love,'  but  that  perfect  bond  will  not  be 
worn  by  us,  unless  we  have  girded  our  loins  with  truth- 
fulness. 

It  may  be  that  in  Paul's  memory  there  is  floating 
Isaiah's  great  vision  of  the  '  Branch '  out  of  the  stock  of 
Jesse,  on  whom  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  was  to  rest,  and 
on  whom  it  was  proclaimed  that  faithfulness  (or  as  it 
is  rendered  in  the  Septuagint,  by  the  same  phrase 
which  the  Apostle  here  employs,  '  in  truth ')  was  to  be 
the  girdle  of  his  reins ;  but,  at  all  events,  that  which 
the  prophet  saw  to  be  in  the  ideal  Messiah,  the  Apostle 
sees  as  essential  to  all  the  subjects  of  that  King. 

III.  Our  truthfulness  is  the  work  of  God's  truth. 

We  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  expression  in 
the  text  may  either  be  taken  as  referring  to  the  sub- 
jective quality  of  truthfulness,  or  to  the  objective  truth 
of  God   as   contained  in  the   Gospel,  but   these   two 


348   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

interpretations  may  be  united,  for  the  main  factor  in 
producing  the  former  is  the  faithful  use  of  the  latter 
and  an  honest  submission  to  its  operation.  The  Psalmist 
of  old  had  learned  that  the  great  safeguard  against  sin 
was  the  resolve,  'Thy  word  have  I  hid  in  my  heart.' 
That  word  brings  to  bear  the  mightiest  motives  that 
can  sway  life.  It  moves  by  love,  by  fear,  by  hope :  it 
proposes  the  loftiest  aim,  even  to  imitate  God  as  dear 
children ;  it  gives  clear  directions,  and  draws  straight 
and  plain  the  pilgrim's  path;  it  holds  out  the  largest 
promises,  and  in  a  measure  fulfils  them,  even  in  the 
narrowest  and  most  troubled  lives.  If  we  have  made 
God's  truth  our  own,  and  are  faithfully  applying  it  to 
the  details  of  daily  life  and  submitting  our  whole  selves 
to  its  operation,  we  shall  be  truthful  and  shall  instinc- 
tively shrink  from  all  unreality.  If  we  know  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  walk  in  it,  that  *  truth  will  make 
us  free,'  and  if  thus  *  we  are  in  Him  that  is  true,  even 
in  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ,'  that  truth  abiding  in  us,  and 
with  us,  for  ever,  will  make  us  truthful.  In  a  heart  so 
occupied  and  filled  there  is  no  room  for  the  make- 
believes  which  are  but  too  apt  to  creep  into  religious 
experience.  Such  a  soul  will  recoil  with  an  instinct  of 
abhorrence  from  all  that  savours  of  ostentation,  and 
will  feel  that  its  truest  treasure  cannot  be  shown.  It 
is  our  duty  not  to  hide  God's  righteousness  within  our 
hearts,  but  it  is  equally  our  duty  to  hide  His  word 
there.  We  have  to  seek  to  make  manifest  the  '  savour 
of  His  knowledge  in  every  place,'  but  we  have  also  to 
remember  that  in  our  hearts  there  is  a  secret  place, 
and  that  '  not  easily  forgiven  are  they  who  draw  back 
the  curtains,'  and  let  a  careless  world  look  in.  It  is 
not  for  others  to  pry  into  the  hidden  mysteries  of 
the  fellowship  of  a  soul  with  the  indwelling   Christ, 


v.U]        *  THE  GIRDLE  OF  TRUTH'  349 

however  it  may  be  the  Christian  duty  to  show  to  all 
and  sundry  the  blessed  and  transforming  effects  of 
that  fellowship. 

But  God's  truth  must  be  received  and  its  power  sub- 
mitted to,  if  it  is  to  implant  in  us  the  supreme  grace  of 
perfect  truthfulness.  Our  minds  and  hearts  must  be 
saturated  with  it  by  many  an  hour  of  solitary  reflec- 
tion, by  meditation  which  will  diffuse  its  aroma  like  a 
fragrant  perfume  through  our  characters,  and  by  the 
habit  of  bringing  all  circumstances,  moods,  and  desires 
to  be  tested  by  its  infallible  criterion,  and  by  the  un- 
reluctant  acceptance  of  its  guidance  at  every  moment 
of  our  lives.  There  are  many  of  us  who,  in  a  real 
though  terribly  imperfect  sense,  hold  the  truth,  but 
who  know  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing,  of  its  power  to 
make  us  truthful.  If  it  is  to  be  of  any  use  to  us,  we 
must  make  it  ours  in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  it  is  ours 
now  ;  for  many  of  us  the  girdle  has  been  but  carelessly 
fastened  and  has  worked  loose,  and  because,  by  our 
own  faults,  we  have  not  'abode  in  the  truth,'  it  has 
come  to  pass  that  there  is  '  no  truth  in  us.'  We  have 
set  before  us  in  the  text  the  one  condition  on  which  all 
Christian  progress  depends,  and  if  by  any  slackness  we 
loosen  the  girdle  of  truthfulness,  and  admit  into  our 
religious  life  any  taint  of  unreality,  if  our  prayers  say 
just  a  little  more  than  is  quite  true,  and  our  penitence 
a  little  less,  we  shall  speedily  find  that  hypocrisy  and 
trivial  insincerity  are  separated  by  very  narrow  limits. 
God's  truth  in  the  Gospel  cleanses  the  inner  man,  but 
not  without  his  own  effort,  and,  therefore,  we  are 
commanded  to  'cleanse  ourselves  from  all  filthiness 
of  flesh  and  spirit,  perfecting  holiness,  in  the  fear  of 
the  Lord.' 


'THE  BREASTPLATE  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS' 

'Haring  put  on  the  breastplate  of  righteousness.'— Eph.  vi.  14. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  this  whole  context  the 
Apostle  has  in  mind  the  great  passage  in  Isaiah  lix. 
where  the  prophet,  in  a  figure  of  extreme  boldness, 
describes  the  Lord  as  arming  Himself  to  deliver  the 
oppressed  faithful,  and  coming  as  a  Redeemer  to  Zion. 
In  that  passage  the  Lord  puts  on  righteousness  as  a 
breastplate — that  is  to  say,  God,  in  His  manifestation 
of  Himself  for  the  deliverance  of  His  people,  comes 
forth  as  if  arrayed  in  the  glittering  armour  of  righteous- 
ness. Paul  does  not  shrink  from  applying  the  same 
metaphor  to  those  who  are  to  be  '  imitators  of  God  as 
beloved  children,'  and  from  urging  upon  them  that,  in 
their  humble  degree  and  lowly  measure,  they  too  are 
to  be  clothed  in  the  bright  armour  of  moral  rectitude. 
This  righteousness  is  manifested  in  character  and  in 
conduct,  and  as  the  breastplate  guards  the  vital  organs 
from  assault,  it  will  keep  the  heart  unwouuded. 

We  must  note  that  Paul  here  gathers  up  the  whole 
sum  of  Christian  character  and  conduct  into  one  word. 
All  can  be  expressed,  however  diversified  may  be  the 
manifestations,  by  the  one  sovereign  term  '  righteous- 
ness,' and  that  is  not  merely  a  hasty  generalisation,  or 
a  too  rapid  synthesis.  As  all  sin  has  one  root  and  is 
generically  one,  so  all  goodness  is  at  bottom  one.  The 
germ  of  sin  is  living  to  oneself :  the  germ  of  goodness 
is  living  to  God.  Though  the  degrees  of  development 
of  either  opposite  are  infinite,  and  the  forms  of  its 
expression  innumerable,  yet  the  root  of  each  is  one. 

Paul  thinks  of  righteousness  as  existent  before  the 


v.U]  'THE  BREASTPLATE'  351 

Christian  soldier  puts  it  on.  In  this  thought  we  are  not 
merely  relying  on  the  metaphor  of  our  text,  but  bring- 
ing it  into  accord  with  the  whole  tone  of  New  Testa- 
ment teaching,  which  knows  of  only  one  way  in  which 
any  soul  that  has  been  living  to  self,  and  therefore  to 
sin,  can  attain  to  living  to  God,  and  therefore  can  be 
righteous.  We  must  receive,  if  we  are  ever  to  possess, 
the  righteousness  which  is  of  God,  and  which  becomes 
ours  through  Jesus  Christ.  The  righteousness  which 
shines  as  a  fair  but  unattainable  vision  before  sinful 
men,  has  a  real  existence,  and  may  be  theirs.  It  is  not 
to  be  self-elaborated,  but  to  be  received. 

That  existent  righteousness  is  to  be  put  on.  Other 
places  of  Scripture  figure  it  as  the  robe  of  righteous- 
ness ;  here  it  is  conceived  of  as  the  breastplate,  but  the 
idea  of  assumption  is  the  same.  It  is  to  be  put  on, 
primarily,  by  faith.  It  is  given  in  Christ  to  simple 
belief.  He  that  hath  faith  thereby  has  the  righteous- 
ness which  is  through  faith  in  Christ,  for  in  his  faith 
he  has  the  one  formative  principle  of  reliance  on  God, 
which  will  gradually  refine  character  and  mould  con- 
duct into  whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good 
report.  That  righteousness  which  faith  receives  is  no 
mere  forensic  treating  of  the  unjust  as  just,  but  whilst 
it  does  bring  with  it  pardon  and  oblivion  from  past 
transgressions,  it  makes  a  man  in  the  depths  of  his 
being  righteous,  however  slowly  it  may  afterwards 
transform  his  conduct.  The  faith  which  is  a  departure 
from  all  reliance  on  works  of  righteousness  which  we 
have  done,  and  is  a  single-eyed  reliance  on  the  work  of 
Jesus  Christ,  opens  the  heart  in  which  it  is  planted  to 
all  the  influences  of  that  life  which  was  in  Jesus,  that 
from  Him  it  may  be  in  us.  If  Christ  be  in  us  (and  if 
He  is  not,  we  are  none  of  His),  '  the  spirit  is  life  because 


352    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

of  righteousness,'  however  the  hody  may  still  he  '  dead 
because  of  sin.' 

But  the  putting  on  of  the  breastplate  requires  effort 
as  well  as  faith,  and  effort  will  be  vigorous  in  the 
measure  in  which  faith  is  vivid,  but  it  should  follow, 
not  precede  or  supplant,  faith.  There  is  no  more  hope- 
less and  weary  advice  than  would  be  the  exhortation 
of  our  text  if  it  stood  alone.  It  is  a  counsel  of  despair 
to  tell  a  man  to  put  on  that  breastplate,  and  to  leave 
him  in  doubt  where  he  is  to  find  it,  or  whether  he  has 
to  hammer  it  together  by  his  own  efforts  before  he  can 
put  it  on.  There  is  no  more  unprofitable  expenditure 
of  breath  than  the  cry  to  men,  Be  good  I  Be  good! 
Moral  teaching  without  Gospel  preaching  is  little  better 
than  a  waste  of  breath. 

This  injunction  is  continuously  imperative  upon  all 
Christian  soldiers.  They  are  on  the  march  through 
the  enemy's  country,  and  can  never  safely  lay  aside 
their  armour.  After  all  successes,  and  no  less  after  all 
failures,  we  have  still  to  arm  ourselves  for  the  fight, 
and  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  righteousness 
of  which  Paul  speaks  differs  from  common  earthly 
moralities  only  as  including  and  transcending  them 
all.  It  is,  alas,  too  true  that  Christian  righteousness 
has  been  by  Christians  set  forth  as  something  fantastic 
and  unreal,  remote  from  ordinary  life,  and  far  too 
heavenly-minded  to  care  for  common  virtues.  Let  us 
never  forget  that  Jesus  Himself  has  warned  us,  that 
except  our  righteousness  exceed  the  righteousness  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  we  shall  in  no  wise  enter 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  greater  orbit  encloses 
the  lesser  within  itself. 

The  breastplate  of  righteousness  is  our  defence 
against  evil.      The  opposition  to  temptation  is  best 


T.  U]  A  SOLDIER'S  SHOES  353 

carried  on  by  the  positive  cultivation  of  good.  A  habit 
of  righteous  conduct  is  itself  a  defence  against  tempta- 
tion. Untilled  fields  bear  abundant  weeds.  The  used 
tool  does  not  rust,  nor  the  running  water  gather  scum. 
The  robe  of  righteousness  will  guard  the  heart  as 
effectually  as  a  coat  of  mail.  The  positive  employment 
with  good  weakens  temptation,  and  arms  us  against 
evil.  But  so  long  as  we  are  here  our  righteousness 
must  be  militant,  and  we  must  be  content  to  live  ever 
armed  to  meet  the  enemy  which  is  always  hanging 
round  us,  and  watching  for  an  opportunity  to  strike. 
The  time  will  come  when  we  shall  put  off  the  breast- 
plate and  put  on  the  fine  linen  '  clean  and  white,'  which 
is  the  heavenly  and  final  form  of  the  righteousness 
of  Saints. 


A  SOLDIER'S  SHOES 

•  Your  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace.'— Eph.  vL  15. 

Paul  drew  the  first  draft  of  this  picture  of  the  Chris- 
tian armour  in  his  first  letter.  Ifc  is  a  finished  picture 
here.  One  can  fancy  that  the  Roman  soldier  to  whom 
he  was  chained  in  his  captivity,  whilst  this  letter  was 
being  written,  unconsciously  sat  for  his  likeness,  and 
that  each  piece  of  his  accoutrements  was  seized  in  suc- 
cession by  the  Apostle's  imagination  and  turned  to  a 
Christian  use.  It  is  worth  noticing  that  there  is  only 
one  offensive  weapon  mentioned — '  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit.'  All  the  rest  are  defensive — helmet,  breastplate, 
shield,  girdle,  and  shoes.  That  is  to  say,  the  main  part 
of  our  warfare  consists  in  defence,  in  resistance,  and  in 
keeping  what  we  have,  in  spite  of  everybody,  men  and 
devils,  who  attempt  to  take  it  from  us.  'Hold  fast 
that  thou  hast ;  let  no  man  take  thy  crown.' 

z 


354    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  ordinary  reader  does 
not  quite  grasp  the  meaning  of  our  text,  and  that  it 
would  be  more  intelligible  if,  instead  of  '  preparation,' 
which  means  the  process  of  getting  a  thing  ready,  we 
read  '  preparedness,'  which  means  the  state  of  mind  of 
the  man  who  is  ready.  Then  we  have  to  notice  that 
the  little  word  'of  does  duty  to  express  two  different 
relations,  in  the  two  instances  of  its  use  here.  In  the 
first  case — '  the  preparedness  of  the  Gospel ' — it  states 
the  origin  of  the  thing  in  question.  That  condition  of 
being  ready  comes  from  the  good  news  of  Christ.  In 
the  second  case — 'the  Gospel  of  peace' — it  states  the 
result  of  the  thing  in  question.  The  good  news  of 
Christ  gives  peace.  So,  taking  the  whole  clause,  we 
may  paraphrase  it  by  saying  that  the  preparedness  of 
spirit,  the  alacrity  which  comes  from  the  possession  of 
a  Gospel  that  sheds  a  calm  over  the  heart  and  brings  a 
man  into  peace  with  God,  is  what  the  Apostle  thinks  is 
like  the  heavy  hob-nailed  boots  that  the  legionaries 
wore,  by  which  they  could  stand  firm,  whatever  came 
against  them. 

I.  The  first  thing  that  I  would  notice  here  is  that  the 
Gospel  brings  peace. 

I  suppose  that  there  was  ringing  in  Paul's  head  some 
echoes  of  the  music  of  Isaiah's  words,  '  How  beautiful 
upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  Him  that  bringeth 
good  tidings,  that  publisheth  peace,  that  bringeth  good 
tidings  of  good  !'  But  there  is  a  great  deal  more  than 
an  unconscious  quotation  of  ancient  words  here;  for 
in  Paul's  thought,  the  one  power  which  brings  a  man 
into  harmony  with  the  universe  and  to  peace  with  him- 
self, is  the  power  which  proclaims  that  God  is  at  peace 
with  him.  And  Jesus  Christ  is  our  peace,  because  He 
has  swept  away  the  root  and  bitter  fountain  of  all  the 


V.15]  A  SOLDIER'S  SHOES  355 

disquiet  of  men's  hearts,  and  all  their  chafing  at  pro- 
vidences —  the  consciousness  that  there  is  discord 
between  themselves  and  God.  The  Gospel  brings  peace 
in  the  deepest  sense  of  that  word,  and,  primarily,  peace 
with  God,  from  out  of  which  all  other  kinds  of  tran- 
quillity and  heart-repose  do  come — and  they  come  from 
nothing  besides. 

But  what  strikes  me  most  here  is  not  so  much  the 
allusion  to  the  blessed  truth  that  was  believed  and  ex- 
perienced by  these  Ephesian  Christians,  that  the  Gospel 
brought  peace,  and  was  the  only  thing  that  did,  as  the 
singular  emergence  of  that  idea  that  the  Gospel  was  a 
peace-bringing  power,  in  the  midst  of  this  picture  of 
fighting.  Yes,  it  brings  both.  It  brings  us  peace  first, 
and  then  it  says  to  us, '  Now,  having  got  peace  in  your 
heart,  because  peace  with  God,  go  out  and  fight  to  keep 
it.'  For,  if  we  are  warring  with  the  devil  we  are  at 
peace  with  God ;  and  if  we  are  at  peace  with  the  devil 
we  are  warring  with  God.  So  the  two  states  of  peace 
and  war  go  together.  There  is  no  real  peace  which  has 
not  conflict  in  it,  and  the  Gospel  is  '  the  Gospel  of  peace,' 
precisely  because  it  enlists  us  in  Christ's  army  and 
sends  us  out  to  fight  Christ's  battles. 

So,  then,  dear  brother,  the  only  way  to  realise  and 
preserve  'the  peace  of  God  which  passes  understand- 
ing' is  to  fling  ourselves  manfully  into  the  fight  to 
which  all  Christ's  soldiers  are  pledged  and  bound.  The 
two  conditions,  though  they  seem  to  be  opposite,  will 
unite  ;  for  this  is  the  paradox  of  the  Christian  life,  that 
in  all  regions  it  makes  compatible  apparently  incom- 
patible and  contradictory  emotions.  '  As  sorrowful ' — 
and  Paul  might  have  said  '  therefore '  instead  of  *  yet ' 
— '  as  sorrowful  yet  always  rejoicing  ;  as  having  nothing 
yet  * — therefore — 'possessing  all  things ' ;  as  in  the  thick 


356    EPISTI.E  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

of  the  fight,  and  yet  kept  in  perfect  peace,  because  the 
soul  is  stayed  on  God.  The  peace  that  comes  from 
friendship  with  Him,  the  peace  that  fills  a  heart  tran- 
quil because  satisfied,  the  peace  that  soothes  a 
conscience  emptied  of  all  poison  and  robbed  of  all 
its  sting,  the  peace  that  abides  because,  on  all  the 
horizon  in  front  of  us  nothing  can  be  seen  that  we 
need  to  be  afraid  of — that  peace  is  the  peace  which  the 
Gospel  brings,  and  it  is  realised  in  warfare  and  is  con- 
sistent with  it.  All  the  armies  of  the  world  may  camp 
round  the  fortress,  and  the  hurtling  noise  of  battle 
may  be  loud  in  the  plains,  but  up  upon  the  impregnable 
cliff  crowned  by  its  battlements  there  is  a  central 
citadel,  with  a  chapel  in  the  heart  of  it;  and  to  the 
worshippers  there  none  of  the  noise  ever  penetrates. 
The  Gospel  which  laps  us  in  peace  and  puts  it  in  our 
hearts  makes  us  soldiers. 

II.  Further,  this  Gospel  of  peace  wiU  prepare  us  for 
the  march. 

A  wise  general  looks  after  his  soldiers'  boots.  If  they 
give  out,  nothing  else  is  of  much  use.  The  roads  are 
very  rough  and  very  long,  and  there  need  to  be  strong 
soles  and  well-sewed  uppers,  and  they  will  be  none  the 
worse  for  a  bit  of  iron  on  the  heels  and  the  toes,  in 
order  that  they  may  not  wear  out  in  the  midst  of  the 
campaign.  '  Thy  shoes  shall  be  iron  and  brass,'  and 
these  metals  are  harder  than  any  of  the  rock  that  you 
will  have  to  clamber  over.  Which  being  translated 
into  plain  fact  is  just  this — a  tranquil  heart  in  amity 
with  God  is  ready  for  all  the  road,  is  likely  to  make 
progress,  and  is  fit  for  anything  that  it  may  be  called 
to  do. 

A  calm  heart  makes  a  light  foot ;  and  he  who  is  living 
at  peace  with  God,  and  with  all  disturbance  within 


T.16]  A  SOLDIER'S  SHOES  857 

hushed  to  rest,  will,  for  one  thing,  be  able  to  see  what 
his  duty  is.  He  will  see  his  way  as  far  as  is  needful 
for  the  moment.  That  is  more  than  a  good  many  of  us 
can  do  when  our  eyes  get  confused,  because  our  hearts 
are  beating  so  loudly  and  fast,  and  our  own  wishes 
come  in  to  hide  from  us  God's  will.  But  if  we  are 
weaned  from  ourselv  es,  as  we  shall  be  if  we  are  living 
in  possession  of  the  peace  of  God  which  passes  under- 
standing, the  atmosphere  will  be  transparent,  as  it  is 
on  some  of  the  calm  last  days  of  autumn,  and  we  shall 
see  far  ahead  and  know  where  we  ought  to  go. 

The  quiet  heart  will  be  able  to  fling  its  whole  strength 
into  its  w^ork.  And  that  is  what  troubled  hearts  never 
can  do,  for  half  their  energy  is  taken  up  in  steadying 
or  quieting  themselves,  or  is  dissipated  in  going  after 
a  hundred  other  things.  But  when  we  are  wholly 
engaged  in  quiet  fellowship  with  Jesus  Christ  we  have 
the  whole  of  our  energies  at  our  command,  and  can 
fling  ourselves  wholly  into  our  work  for  Him.  The 
steam-engine  is  said  to  be  a  very  imperfect  machine 
which  wastes  more  power  than  it  utilises.  That  is  true 
of  a  great  many  Christian  people;  they  have  the 
power,  but  they  are  so  far  away  from  that  deep  sense 
of  tranquillity  with  God,  of  which  my  text  speaks,  that 
they  waste  much  of  the  power  that  they  have.  And  if 
we  are  to  have  for  our  motto  '  Always  Ready,'  as  an  old 
Scottish  family  has,  the  only  way  to  secure  that  is  by 
having  *our  feet  shod  with  the  preparedness'  that 
comes  from  the  Gospel  that  brings  us  peace.  Brethren, 
duty  that  is  done  reluctantly,  with  hesitation,  is  not 
done.  We  must  fling  ourselves  into  the  work  gladly 
and  be  always  '  ready  for  all  Thy  perfect  will.' 

There  was  an  English  commander,  who  died  some 
years  ago,  who  was  sent  for  to  the  Horse  Guards  one 


358    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [oh.vi. 

day  and  asked,  '  How  long  will  it  take  for  you  to  be 
ready  to  go  to  Scinde  ?  *  *  Half  an  hour,'  said  he ;  and 
in  three-quarters  he  was  in  the  train,  on  his  road  to 
reconquer  a  kingdom.  That  is  how  we  ought  to  be  ; 
but  we  never  shall  be,  unless  we  live  habitually  in 
tranquil  communion  with  God,  and  in  the  full 
faith  that  we  are  at  peace  with  Him  through  the 
blood  of  His  Son.  A  quiet  heart  makes  us  ready  for 
duty. 

III.  Again,  the  Gospel  of  peace  prepares  us  for 
combat. 

In  ancient  warfare  battles  were  lost  or  won  very 
largely  according  to  the  weight  of  the  masses  of  men 
that  were  hurled  against  each  other;  and  the  heavier 
men,  with  the  firmer  footing,  were  likely  to  be  the 
victors.  Our  modern  scientific  way  of  fighting  is  differ- 
ent from  that.  But  in  the  old  time  the  one  thing 
needful  was  that  a  man  should  stand  firm  and  resist 
the  shock  of  the  enemies  as  they  rushed  upon  him. 
Unless  our  footing  is  good  we  shall  be  tumbled  over  by 
the  onset  of  some  unexpected  antagonist.  And  for 
good  footing  there  are  two  things  necessary.  One  is  a 
good,  solid  piece  of  ground  to  stand  on,  that  is  not 
slippery  nor  muddy,  and  the  other  is  a  good,  strong  pair 
of  soldier's  boots,  that  will  take  hold  on  the  ground  and 
help  the  wearer  to  steady  himself.  Christ  has  set  our 
feet  on  the  rock,  and  so  the  first  requisite  is  secured. 
If  we,  for  our  part,  will  keep  near  to  that  Gospel  which 
brings  peace  into  our  hearts,  the  peace  that  it  brings 
will  make  us  able  to  stand  and  bear  unmoved  any 
force  that  may  be  hurled  against  us.  If  we  are  to  be 
'  steadfast,  unmovable,'  we  can  only  be  so  when  our 
feet  are  shod  with  the  preparedness  of  the  Gospel  of 
peace. 


T.15]  A  SOLDIER'S  SHOES  359 

The  most  of  your  temptations,  most  of  the  things 
that  would  pkick  you  away  from  Jesus  Christ,  and 
upset  you  in  your  standing  will  come  down  upon  you 
unexpectedly.  Nothing  happens  in  this  world  except 
the  unexpected  ;  and  it  is  the  sudden  assaults  that  we 
were  not  looking  for  that  work  most  disastrously 
against  us.  A  man  may  he  aware  of  some  special 
weakness  in  his  character,  and  have  given  himself 
carefully  and  patiently  to  try  to  fortify  himself  against 
it,  and,  lo !  all  at  once  a  temptation  springs  up  from 
the  opposite  side;  the  enemy  was  lying  in  hiding  there, 
and  whilst  his  face  was  turned  to  fight  with  one  foe,  a 
foe  that  he  knew  nothing  about  came  storming  behind 
him.  There  is  only  one  way  to  stand,  and  that  is  not 
merely  by  cultivating  careful  watchfulness  against  our 
own  weaknesses,  but  by  keeping  fast  hold  of  Jesus 
Christ  manifested  to  us  in  His  Gospel.  Then  ihe  peace 
that  comes  from  that  communion  will  itself  guard  us. 

You  remember  what  Paul  says  in  one  of  his  other 
letters,  where  he  has  the  same  beautiful  blending 
together  of  the  two  ideas  of  peace  and  warfare  :  '  The 
peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  understanding,  shall 
garrison  your  hearts  and  minds  in  Christ  Jesus.'  It 
will  be,  as  it  were,  an  armed  force  within  your  heart 
which  will  repel  all  antagonism,  and  will  enable  you  to 
abide  in  that  Christ,  through  whom  and  in  whom  alone 
all  peace  comes.  So,  because  we  are  thus  liable  to  be 
overwhelmed  by  a  sudden  rush  of  unexpected  tempta- 
tion, and  surprised  into  a  sin  before  we  know  where 
we  are,  let  us  keep  fast  hold  by  that  Gospel  which 
brings  peace,  which  will  give  us  steadfastness,  however 
suddenly  the  masked  battery  may  begin  to  play  upon 
us,  and  the  foe  may  steal  out  of  his  ambush  and  make 
a  rush  against  our  unprotectedness.    That  is  the  only 


360  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

way,  as  I  think,  by  which  we  can  walk  scatheless 
through  the  world. 

Now,  dear  brethren,  remember  that  this  text  is  part 
of  a  commandment.  We  are  to  put  on  the  shoes.  How 
is  that  to  be  done  ?  By  a  very  simple  way :  a  way 
which,  I  am  afraid,  a  great  many  Christian  people  do 
not  practise  with  anything  like  the  constancy  that 
they  ought.  For  it  is  the  Gospel  that  brings  the  peace, 
and  if  its  peace  brings  the  preparedness,  then  the  way 
to  get  the  preparedness  is  by  soaking  our  minds  and 
hearts  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

You  hear  a  good  deal  nowadays  about  deepening  the 
spiritual  life,  and  people  hold  conventions  for  the  pur- 
pose. All  right ;  I  have  not  a  word  to  say  against 
that.  But,  conventions  or  no  conventions,  there  is  only 
one  thing  that  deepens  the  spiritual  life,  and  that  is 
keeping  near  the  Christ  from  whom  all  the  fulness  of 
the  spiritual  life  flows.  If  we  will  hold  fast  by  our 
Gospel,  and  let  its  peace  lie  upon  our  minds,  as  the 
negative  of  a  photograph  lies  upon  the  paper  that  it  is 
to  be  printed  upon,  until  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ 
Bimself  is  reproduced  in  us,  then  we  may  laugh  at 
temptation.  For  there  will  be  no  temptation  when  the 
heart  is  full  of  Him,  and  there  will  be  no  sense  of  sur- 
rendering anything  that  we  wish  to  keep  when  the 
superior  sweetness  of  His  grace  fills  our  souls.  It  is 
empty  vessels  into  which  poison  can  be  poured.  If 
the  vessel  is  full  there  will  be  no  room  for  it.  Get 
your  hearts  and  minds  filled  with  the  wine  of  the  king- 
dom, and  the  devil's  venom  of  temptation  will  have  no 
space  to  get  in.  It  is  well  to  resist  temptation;  it 
is  better  to  be  lifted  above  it,  so  that  it  ceases  to 
tempt.  And  the  one  way  to  secure  that  is  to  live  near 
Jesus  Christ,  and  let  the  Gospel  of  His  grace  take  up 


V.15]  THE  SHIELD  OF  FAITH  361 

more  of  our  thoughts  and  more  of  our  affections  than 
it  has  done  in  the  past.  Then  we  shall  realise  the  ful- 
filment of  the  promise :  '  He  will  not  suffer  thy  foot  to 
be  moved.' 


THE  SHIELD  OF  FAITH 

'Above  all,  taking  the  shield  of  faith,  whereby  ye  shall  be  able  to  quench  all  the 
fiery  darts  of  the  wicked.'— Eph.  vi,  16. 

There  were  tw^o  kinds  of  shields  in  use  in  ancient 
warfare — one  smaller,  carried  upon  the  arm,  and  which 
could  be  used,  by  a  movement  of  the  arm,  for  the 
defence  of  threatened  parts  of  the  body  in  detail ;  the 
other  large,  planted  in  front  of  the  soldier,  fixed  in  the 
ground,  and  all  but  covering  his  whole  person.  It  is 
the  latter  which  is  referred  to  in  the  text,  as  the  word 
which  describes  it  clearly  shows.  That  word  is  con- 
nected with  the  Greek  word  meaning  '  door,'  and  gives 
a  rough  notion  of  the  look  of  the  instrument  of  defence 
— a  great  rectangular  oblong,  behind  which  a  man 
could  stand  untouched  and  untouchable.  And  that  is 
the  kind  of  shield,  says  Paul,  which  we  are  to  have — no 
little  defence  which  may  protect  some  part  of  the 
nature,  but  a  great  wall,  behind  which  he  who  crouches 
is  safe. 

*  Above  all '  does  not  mean  here,  as  superficial  readers 
take  it  to  mean,  most  especially  and  primarily,  as 
most  important,  but  it  simply  means  in  addition  to  all 
these  other  things.  Perhaps  with  some  allusion  to  the 
fact  that  the  shield  protected  the  breastplate,  as  well 
as  the  breastplate  protected  the  man,  there  may  be  a 
reference  to  the  kind  of  double  defence  which  comes 


a02    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

to  him  who  wears  that  breastplate  and  lies  behind  the 
shelter  of  a  strong  and  resolute  faith. 

I.  Now,  looking  at  this  metaphor  from  a  practical 
point  of  view,  the  first  thing  to  note  is  the  missiles, 
'  the  fiery  darts  of  the  wicked.' 

Archaeologists  tell  us  that  there  were  in  use  in 
ancient  warfare  javelins  tipped  with  some  kind  of 
combustible,  which  were  set  on  fire,  and  flung,  so  that 
they  had  not  only  the  power  of  wounding  but  also  of 
burning ;  and  that  there  were  others  with  a  hollow 
head,  which  was  in  like  manner  filled,  kindled,  and 
thrown  into  the  ranks  of  the  enemy.  I  suppose  that 
the  Apostle's  reason  for  specifying  these  fiery  darts 
was  simply  that  they  were  the  most  formidable  offen- 
sive weapons  that  he  had  ever  heard  of.  Probably,  if 
he  had  lived  to-day,  he  would  have  spoken  of  rifle- 
bullets  or  explosive  shells,  instead  of  fiery  darts.  But, 
though  probably  the  Apostle  had  no  further  mean- 
ing in  the  metaphor  than  to  suggest  that  faith  was 
mightier  than  the  mightiest  assaults  that  can  be  hurled 
against  it,  we  may  venture  to  draw  attention  to  two 
particulars  in  which  this  figure  is  specially  instruct! v^e 
and  warning.  The  one  is  the  action  of  certain  tempta- 
tions in  setting  the  soul  on  fire;  the  other  is  the 
suddenness  with  which  they  assail  us. 

'  The  fiery  darts.'  Now,  I  do  not  wish  to  confine  that 
metaphor  too  narrowly  to  any  one  department  of 
human  nature,  for  our  whole  being  is  capable  of  being 
set  on  fire,  and  'set  on  fire  of  hell,'  as  James  says.  But 
there  are  things  in  us  all  to  which  the  fiery  darts  do 
especially  appeal :  desires,  apiDctites,  passions ;  or — to 
use  the  word  which  refined  people  are  so  afraid  of, 
although  the  Bible  is  not,  '  lusts — which  war  against 
the  soul,'  and  which  need  only  a  touch  of  fire  to  flare 


V.16]  THE  SHIELD  OF  FAITH  363 

up  like  a  tar-barrel,  in  thick  foul  smoke  darkening  the 
heavens.  There  are  fiery  darts  that  strike  these  animal 
natures  of  ours,  and  set  them  all  aflame. 

But,  there  are  other  fiery  darts  than  these.  There 
are  plenty  of  other  desires  in  us :  wishes,  cowardices, 
weaknesses  of  all  sorts,  that,  once  touched  with  the 
devil's  dart,  will  burn  fiercely  enough.  We  all  know 
that. 

Then  there  is  the  other  characteristic  of  suddenness. 
The  dart  comes  without  any  warning.  The  arrow  is 
invisible  until  it  is  buried  in  the  man's  breast.  The 
pestilence  walks  in  darkness,  and  the  victim  does  not 
know  until  its  poison  fang  is  in  him.  Ah !  yes !  brethren, 
the  most  dangerous  of  our  temptations  are  those  that 
are  sprung  upon  us  unawares.  We  are  going  quietly 
along  the  course  of  our  daily  lives,  occupied  with  quite 
other  thoughts,  and  all  at  once,  as  if  a  door  had  opened, 
not  out  of  heaven  but  out  of  hell,  we  are  confronted 
with  some  evil  thing  that,  unless  we  are  instantane- 
ously on  our  guard,  will  conquer  us  almost  before  we 
know.  Evil  tempts  us  because  it  comes  to  us,  for  the 
most  part,  without  any  beat  of  drum  or  blast  of 
trumpet  to  say  that  it  is  coming,  and  to  put  us  upon 
our  guard.  The  batteries  that  do  most  harm  to  the 
advancing  force  are  masked  until  the  word  of  command 
is  given,  and  then  there  is  a  flash  from  every  cannon's 
throat  and  a  withering  hail  of  shot  that  confounds  by 
its  unexpectedness  as  well  as  kills  by  its  blow.  The 
fiery  darts  that  light  up  the  infernal  furnace  in  a  man's 
heart,  and  that  smite  him  all  unawares  and  unsuspect- 
ing, these  are  the  weapons  that  we  have  to  fear  most. 

II.  Consider  next,  the  defence :  '  the  shield  of  faith.' 

Now,  the  Old  Testament  says  things  like  this :  '  Fear 
not,  Abraham ;  I  am  thy  Shield.'    The  psalmist  invoked 


364   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

God,  in  a  rapturous  exuberance  of  adoring  invocations, 
as  his  fortress,  and  his  buckler,  and  the  horn  of  his 
salvation,  and  his  high  tower.  The  same  psalm  says, 
'  The  Lord  is  a  shield  to  all  them  that  put  their  trust  in 
Him';  and  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  which  is  not  given 
to  quoting  psalms,  quotes  that  verse.  Another  psalm 
says, '  The  Lord  God  is  a  sun  and  shield.' 

And  then  Paul  comes  speaking  of  '  the  shield  of  faith* 
What  has  become  of  the  other  one?  The  answer  is 
plain  enough.  My  faith  is  nothing  except  for  what  it 
puts  in  front  of  me,  and  it  is  God  who  is  truly  my 
shield;  my  faith  is  only  called  a  shield,  because  it 
brings  me  behind  the  bosses  of  the  Almighty's  buckler, 
against  which  no  man  can  run  a  tilt,  or  into  which  no 
man  can  strike  his  lance,  nor  any  devil  either.  God  is 
a  defence ;  and  my  trust,  which  is  nothing  in  itself,  is 
everything  because  of  that  with  which  it  brings  me 
into  connection.  Faith  is  the  condition,  and  the  only 
condition,  of  God's  power  flowing  into  me,  and  working 
in  me.  And  when  that  power  flows  into  me,  and  works 
in  me,  then  I  can  laugh  at  the  fiery  darts,  because 
'  greater  is  He  that  is  with  us  than  all  they  that  are 
with  them.' 

So  all  the  glorification  which  the  New  Testament 
pours  out  upon  the  act  of  faith  properly  belongs,  not 
to  the  act  itself,  but  to  that  with  which  the  act  brings 
us  into  connection.  Wherefore,  in  the  first  Epistle  of 
John,  the  Apostle,  who  recorded  Christ's  saying,  *Be 
of  good  cheer ;  I  have  overcome  the  world,'  translates 
it  into,  *  This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world' 
— not,  our  Christ,  but — '  even  our  faith.*  And  it  over- 
comes because  it  binds  us  in  deep,  vital  union  with  Him 
who  has  overcome ;  and  then  all  His  conquering  power 
comes  into  us. 


T.  16]         THE  SHIELD  OF  FAITH  365 

That  is  the  explanation  and  vindication  of  the  turn 
which  Paul  gives  to  the  Old  Testament  metaphor  here, 
when  he  makes  our  shield  to  be  faith.  Suppose  a  man 
was  exercising  trust  in  one  that  was  unworthy  of  it, 
would  that  trust  defend  him  from  anything  ?  Suppose 
you  were  in  peril  of  some  great  pecuniary  loss,  and 
were  saying  to  yourself,  '  Oh !  I  do  not  care.  So-and-so 
has  guaranteed  me  against  any  loss,  and  I  trust  to 
him,'  and  suppose  he  was  a  bankrupt,  what  would  be 
the  good  of  your  trust  ?  It  would  not  bring  the  money 
back  into  your  pocket.  Suppose  a  man  is  leaning  upon 
a  rotten  support ;  the  harder  he  leans  the  sooner  it 
will  crumble.  So  there  is  no  defence  in  the  act  of 
trust  except  what  comes  into  it  from  the  object  of 
trust ;  and  my  faith  is  a  shield  only  because  it  grasps 
the  God  who  is  the  shield. 

But,  then,  there  is  another  side  to  that  thought. 
My  faith  will  quench,  as  nothing  else  will,  these 
sudden  impulses  of  fiery  desires,  because  my  faith 
brings  me  into  the  conscious  presence  of  God,  and  of 
the  unseen  realities  where  He  dwells.  How  can  a  man 
sin  when  God's  eye  is  felt  to  be  upon  him  ?  Suppose 
conspirators  plotting  some  dark  deed  in  a  corner, 
shrouded  by  the  night,  as  they  think ;  and  suppose,  all 
at  once,  the  day  were  to  blaze  in  upon  them,  they  would 
scatter,  and  drop  their  designs.  Faith  draws  back  the 
curtain  which  screens  off  that  unseen  world  from  so 
many  of  us,  and  lets  in  the  light  that  shines  down 
from  above  and  shows  us  that  we  are  compassed  about 
by  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  and  the  Captain  of  our  Salva- 
tion in  the  midst  of  them.  Then  the  fiery  darts  fizzle 
out,  and  the  points  drop  off  them.  No  temptation  con- 
tinues to  flame  when  we  see  God. 

They  have  contrivances  in  mills  that  they  call '  auto- 


366   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

matic  sprinklers.'  When  the  fire  touches  them  it  melts 
away  a  covering,  and  a  gas  is  set  free  that  puts  the  fire 
out.  And  if  we  let  in  the  thought  of  God,  it  will  ex- 
tinguish any  flame.  *  The  sun  puts  out  the  fire  in  our 
grates,'  the  old  women  say.  Let  God's  sun  shine  into 
your  heart,  and  you  will  find  that  the  infernal  light 
has  gone  out.  The  shield  of  faith  quenches  the  fiery 
darts  of  the  '  wicked.* 

Yes  !  and  it  does  it  in  another  way.  For,  according 
to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  faith  realises  'the 
things  hoped  for,'  as  well  as  •  unseen.'  And  if  a  man  is 
walking  in  the  light  of  the  great  promises  of  Heaven, 
and  the  great  threatenings  of  a  hell,  he  will  not  be  in 
much  danger  of  being  set  on  fire,  even  by  'the  fiery 
darts  of  the  wicked.'  He  that  receives  into  his  heart 
God's  strength;  he  that  by  faith  is  conscious  of  the 
divine  presence  in  communion  with  him;  he  that  by 
faith  walks  in  the  light  of  eternal  retribution,  will 
triumph  over  the  most  sudden,  the  sharpest,  and  the 
most  fiery  of  the  darts  that  can  be  launched  against 
him. 

III.  The  Grasp  of  the  Shield. 

'  Taking  the  shield,'  then,  there  is  something  to  be 
done  in  order  to  get  the  benefit  of  that  defence.  Now, 
there  are  a  great  many  very  good  people  at  present 
who  tell  Christian  men  that  they  ought  to  exercise 
faith  for  sanctifying,  as  they  exercise  it  for  justifying 
and  acceptance.  And  some  of  them — I  do  not  say  all — 
forget  that  there  is  effort  needed  to  exercise  faith  for 
sanctifying ;  and  that  our  energy  has  to  be  put  forth 
in  order  that  a  man  may,  in  spite  of  all  resistance, 
keep  himself  in  the  attitude  of  dependence.  So  my 
text,  whilst  it  proclaims  that  we  are  to  trust  for 
defence  against,  and  victory  over,  recurring  tempta- 


V.  16]  *  THE  HELMET  OF  SALVATION '    367 

tions,  just  as  we  trusted  for  forgiveness  and  acceptance 
at  the  beginning,  proclaims  also  that  there  must  bo 
effort  to  grasp  the  shield,  and  to  realise  the  defence 
which  the  shield  gives  to  us. 

For  to  trust  is  an  act  of  the  heart  and  will  far  more 
than  of  the  head,  and  there  are  a  great  many  hindrances 
that  rise  in  the  way  of  it;  and  to  keep  behind  the 
shield,  and  not  depend  at  all  upon  our  own  wit,  our 
wisdom,  or  our  strength,  but  wholly  upon  the  Christ 
who  gives  us  wit  and  wisdom,  and  strengthens  our 
fingers  to  fight — that  will  take  work !  To  occupy  heart 
and  mind  with  the  object  of  faith  is  not  an  easy  thing. 

So,  brethren,  effort  to  compel  the  will  and  the  heart 
to  trust;  effort  to  keep  the  mind  in  touch  with  the 
verities  and  the  Person  who  are  the  objects  of  our 
faith  ;  and  effort  to  keep  ourselves  utterly  and  wholly 
ensconced  behind  the  Shield,  and  never  to  venture  out 
into  the  open,  where  our  own  arm  has  to  keep  our 
own  heads,  but  to  hang  wholly  upon  Him — these  things 
go  to  '  taking '  the  shield  of  faith.  And  it  is  because 
we  fail  in  these,  and  not  because  there  are  any  holes  or 
weak  places  in  the  shield,  that  so  many  of  the  fiery 
darts  find  their  way  through,  and  set  on  fire  and 
wound  us.  The  Shield  is  impregnable,  beaten  as  we 
have  often  been.  '  This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh 
the  world' — and  the  devil  and  his  darts — 'even  our 
faith.' 

•THE  HELMET  OF  SALVATION' 

'  Take  the  helmet  of  salvation.'— Eph.  vi.  17. 

Wb  may,  perhaps,  trace  a  certain  progress  in  the 
enumeration  of  the  various  pieces  of  the  Christian 
armour  in  this  context.     Roughly  speaking,  they  are 


368    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

in  three  divisions.  There  are  first  our  graces  of  truth, 
righteousness,  preparedness,  which,  though  they  are  all 
conceived  as  given  by  God,  are  yet  the  exercises  of  our 
own  powers.  There  is  next,  standing  alone,  as  befits 
its  all-comprehensive  character,  faith  which  is  able  to 
ward  against  and  overcome  not  merely  this  and  that 
temptation,  but  all  forms  of  evil.  That  faith  is  the 
root  of  the  three  preceding  graces,  and  makes  the 
transition  to  the  two  which  follow,  because  it  is  the 
hand  by  which  we  lay  hold  of  God's  gifts.  The  two 
final  parts  of  the  Christian  armour  are  God's  gifts,  pure 
and  simple — salvation  and  the  word  of  God.  So  the 
progress  is  from  circumference  to  centre,  from  man  to 
God.  From  the  central  faith  we  have  on  the  one  hand 
that  which  it  produces  in  us ;  on  the  other,  that  which 
it  lays  hold  of  from  God.  And  these  two  last  pieces  of 
armour,  being  wholly  God's  gift,  we  are  bidden  with 
especial  emphasis  which  is  shown  by  a  change  in  con- 
struction, to  take  or  receive  these. 

I.  The  Salvation. 

Once  more  Old  Testament  prophecy  suggests  the 
words  of  this  exhortation.  In  Isaiah's  grand  vision  of 
God,  arising  to  execute  judgment  which  is  also  redemp- 
tion, we  have  a  w^onderful  picture  of  His  arraying 
Himself  in  armour.  Righteousness  is  His  flashing 
breastplate :  on  His  head  is  an  helmet  of  salvation. 
The  gleaming  steel  is  draped  by  garments  of  retributive 
judgment,  and  over  all  is  cast,  like  a  cloak,  the  ample 
folds  of  that  *  zeal '  which  expresses  the  inexhaustible 
energy  and  intensity  of  the  divine  nature  and  action. 
Thus  arrayed  He  comes  forth  to  avenge  and  save. 
His  redeeming  work  is  the  manifestation  and  issue  of 
all  these  characteristics  of  His  nature.  It  flames  with 
divine  fervour :  it  manifests  the  justice  which  repays, 


V.  17]  •  THE  HELMET  OF  SALVATION  '    369 

but  its  inmost  character  is  righteousness,  and  its  chief 
purpose  is  to  save.  His  helmet  is  salvation  ;  the  plain, 
prose  meaning  of  which  would  appear  to  be  that  His 
great  purpose  of  saving  men  is  its  own  guarantee  that 
His  purpose  should  be  effected,  and  is  the  armour  by 
which  His  work  is  defended. 

The  Apostle  uses  the  old  picture  with  perfect  free- 
dom, quoting  the  words  indeed,  but  employing  them 
quite  differently.  God's  helmet  of  salvation  is  His  own 
purpose  ;  man's  helmet  of  salvation  is  God's  gift.  He  is 
strong  to  save  because  He  wills  to  save  ;  we  are  strong 
and  safe  when  we  take  the  salvation  which  He  gives. 

It  is  to  be  further  noticed  that  the  same  image  ap- 
pears in  Paul's  rough  draft  of  the  Christian  armour  in 
Thessalonians,  with  the  significant  difference  that  there 
the  helmet  is  '  the  hope  of  salvation,'  and  here  it  is  the 
salvation  itself.  This  double  representation  is  in  full 
accord  with  all  Scripture  teaching,  according  to  which 
we  both  possess  and  hope  for  salvation,  and  our  posses- 
sion determines  the  measure  of  our  hope.  That  great 
word  negatively  implies  deliverance  from  evil  of  any 
kind,  and  in  its  lower  application,  from  sickness  or 
peril  of  any  sort.  In  its  higher  meaning  in  Scripture 
the  evil  from  which  we  are  saved  is  most  frequently 
left  unexpressed,  but  sometimes  a  little  glimpse  is 
given,  as  when  we  read  that '  we  are  saved  from  wrath 
through  Him,'  or  '  saved  from  sin.'  What  Christ  saves 
us  from  is,  first  and  chiefly,  from  sin  in  all  aspects,  its 
guilt,  its  power,  and  its  penalty;  but  His  salvation 
reaches  much  further  than  any  mere  deliverance  from 
threatening  evil,  and  positively  means  the  communica- 
tion to  our  weakness  and  emptiness  of  all  blessings  and 
graces  possible  for  men.  It  is  inward  and  properly 
spiritual,  but  it  is  also  outward,  and  it  is  not  fully 

2a 


370    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

possessed  until  we  are  clothed  with  '  salvation  ready  to 
be  revealed  in  the  last  time.' 

Hence,  in  Scripture  our  salvation  is  presented  as  past, 
as  present,  and  as  future.  As  past  it  is  once  for  all  re- 
ceived by  initial  faith  in  Christ ;  and,  in  view  of  their 
faith,  Paul  has  no  scruples  as  to  saying  to  the  imperfect 
Christians  whose  imperfections  he  scourges,  *  Ye  have 
been  saved,'  or  in  building  upon  that  past  fact  his 
earnest  exhortations  and  his  scathing  rebukes.  The 
salvation  is  present  if  in  any  true  sense  it  is  past. 
There  will  be  a  daily  growing  deliverance  from  evil 
and  a  daily  growing  appropriation  and  manifestation 
of  the  salvation  which  we  have  received.  And  so  Paul 
more  than  once  speaks  of  Christians  as  '  being  saved.* 
The  process  began  in  the  past  is  continued  throughout 
the  present,  and  the  more  a  Christian  man  is  conscious 
of  its  reality  even  amidst  flaws,  failures,  stagnation, 
and  lapses,  the  more  assured  will  be  his  hope  of  the 
perfect  salvation  in  the  future,  when  all  that  is  here, 
tendency  often  thwarted,  and  aspirations  often  balked, 
and  sometimes  sadly  contradicted,  will  be  completely, 
uninterruptedly,  and  eternally  realised.  If  that  hope 
flickers  and  is  sometimes  all  but  dead,  the  reason  mainly 
lies  in  its  flame  not  being  fed  by  present  experience. 

II.  The  helmet  of  salvation. 

This  salvation  in  its  present  form  will  keep  our  heads 
in  the  day  of  battle.  Its  very  characteristic  is  that  it 
delivers  us  from  evil,  and  all  the  graces  with  which 
Paul  equips  his  ideal  warrior  are  parts  of  the  positive 
blessings  which  our  salvation  brings  us.  The  more 
assured  we  are  in  our  own  happy  consciousness  of 
possessing  the  salvation  of  God,  the  more  shall  we  be 
defended  from  all  the  temptations  that  seek  to  stir  into 
action  our  lower  selves.    There  will  be  no  power  in  our 


V.  17]  *  THE  HELMET  OF  SALVATION '    371 

fears  to  draw  us  into  sin,  and  the  possible  evils  that 
appeal  to  earthly  passions  of  whatever  sort  will  lose 
their  power  to  disturb  us,  in  the  precise  measure  in 
which  we  know  that  we  are  saved  in  Christ.  The 
consciousness  of  salvation  will  tend  to  damp  down  the 
magazine  of  combustibles  that  we  all  carry  within  us, 
and  the  sparks  that  fall  will  be  as  innocuous  as  those 
that  light  on  wet  gunpowder.  If  our  thoughts  are 
occupied  with  the  blessings  which  we  possess  they  will 
be  guarded  against  the  assaults  of  evil.  The  full  cup 
has  no  room  for  poison.  The  eye  that  is  gazing  on 
the  far-off  white  mountains  does  not  see  the  filth  and 
frivolities  around.  If  we  are  living  in  conscious  posses- 
sion and  enjoyment  of  what  God  gives  us,  we  shall 
pass  scatheless  through  the  temptations  which  would 
otherwise  fall  on  us  and  rend  us.  A  future  eagerly 
longed  for,  and  already  possessed  in  germ,  will  kill  a 
present  that  would  otherwise  appeal  to  us  with  irre- 
sistible force. 

III.  Take  the  helmet. 

We  might  perhaps  more  accurately  read  receive  salva- 
tion, for  that  salvation  is  not  won  by  any  efforts  of  our 
own,  but  if  we  ever  possess  it,  our  possession  is  the  re- 
sult of  our  accepting  it  as  a  gift  from  God.  The  first 
word  which  the  Gospel  speaks  to  men  and  which  makes 
it  a  Gospel,  is  not  Do  this  or  that,  but  Take  this  from 
the  hands  that  were  nailed  to  the  Cross.  The  beginning 
of  all  true  life,  of  all  peace,  of  all  self-control,  of  all 
hope,  lies  in  the  humble  and  penitent  acceptance  by 
faith  of  the  salvation  which  Christ  brings,  and  with 
which  we  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  accept  it. 

But  Paul  is  here  speaking  to  those  whom  he  believes 
to  have  already  exercised  the  initial  faith  which  united 
them  to  Christ,  and  made  His  salvation  theirs,  and  to 


372   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS   [ch.  vi 

these  the  exhortation  comes  with  special  force.  To  such 
it  says, '  See  to  it  that  your  faith  ever  grasps  and  feeds 
upon  the  great  facts  on  which  your  salvation  reposes — 
God's  changeless  love,  Christ's  all-sufficient  sacrifice  and 
ascended  life,  which  He  imparts  to  us  if  we  abide  in  Him. 
Hold  fast  and  prolong  by  continual  repetition  the  initial 
act  by  which  you  received  that  salvation.  It  is  said  that 
on  his  death-bed  Oliver  Cromwell  asked  the  Puritan 
divine  who  was  standing  by  it  whether  a  man  who  had 
once  been  in  the  covenant  could  be  lost,  and  on  being 
assured  that  he  could  not,  answered, '  I  know  that  I  was 
once  in  it ' ;  but  such  a  building  on  past  experiences  is  a 
building  on  sand,  and  nothing  but  continuous  faith  will 
secure  a  continuous  salvation.  A  melancholy  number 
of  so-called  Christians  in  this  day  have  to  travel  far 
back  through  the  years  before  they  reach  the  period 
when  they  took  the  helmet  of  salvation.  They  know 
that  they  were  far  better  men,  and  possessed  a  far 
deeper  apprehension  of  Christ  and  His  power  in  the 
old  days  than  is  theirs  now,  and  they  need  not  wonder 
if  God's  great  gift  has  unnoticed  slipped  from  their 
relaxed  grasp.  A  hand  that  clings  to  a  rock  while  a 
swollen  flood  rushes  past  needs  to  perpetually  be  tight- 
ening its  grip,  else  the  man  will  be  swept  away ;  and 
the  present  salvation,  and,  still  more,  the  hope  of  a 
future  salvation,  are  not  ours  on  any  other  terms  than 
a  continual  repetition  of  the  initial  act  by  which  we 
first  received  them.  But  there  must  also  be  a  continu- 
ally increased  appropriation  and  manifestation  in  our 
lives  of  a  progressive  salvation  that  will  come  as  a 
result  of  a  constantly  renewed  faith;  but  it  will  not 
come  unless  there  be  continuous  effort  to  work  into  our 
characters,  and  to  work  out  in  our  lives,  the  transform- 
ing and  vitalising  power  of  the  life  given  to  us  in  Jesus 


V.17]    *THE  SWORD  OF  THE  SPIRIT'    373 

Christ.  If  our  present  experience  yields  no  sign  of 
growing  conformity  to  the  image  of  our  Saviour,  there 
is  only  too  abundant  reason  for  doubting  whether  we 
have  experienced  a  past  salvation  or  have  any  right  to 
anticipate  a  perfect  future  salvation. 

The  last  word  to  be  said  is,  Live  in  frequent  antici- 
pation of  that  perfect  future.  If  that  anticipation  is 
built  on  memory  of  the  past  and  experience  of  the  pre- 
sent, it  cannot  be  too  confident.  That  hope  maketh  not 
ashamed.  In  the  region  of  Christian  experience  alone 
the  weakest  of  us  has  a  right  to  reckon  on  the  future, 
and  to  be  sure  that  when  that  great  to-morrow  dawns 
for  us,  it  '  shall  be  as  this  day  and  much  more  abun- 
dant.' With  this  salvation  in  its  imperfect  form 
brightening  the  present,  and  in  its  completeness  filling 
the  future  with  unimaginable  glory,  we  can  go  into  all 
the  conflicts  of  this  fighting  world  and  feel  that  we  are 
safe  because  God  covers  our  heads  in  the  day  of  battle. 
Unless  so  defended  we  shall  go  into  the  fight  as  the 
naked  Indians  did  with  the  Spanish  invaders,  and  be 
defeated  as  they  were.  The  plumes  may  be  shorn  off 
the  helmet,  and  it  may  be  easily  dinted,  but  the  head 
that  wore  it  will  be  unharmed.  And  when  the  battle 
and  the  noise  of  battle  are  past,  the  helmet  will  be  laid 
aside,  and  we  shall  be  able  to  say,  '  I  have  fought  a  good 
fight,  henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of 
righteousness.' 

'THE  SWORD  OF  THE  SPIRIT' 

*  The  sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God.'— Eph.  vL  17. 

We  reach  here  the  last  and  only  offensive  weapon  in 
the  panoply.  The  *  of '  here  does  not  indicate  apposi- 
tion, as  in  the  '  shield  of  faith,'  or  '  the  helmet  of  salva- 


374    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch  vi. 

tion,'  nor  is  it  the  *  of '  of  possession,  so  that  the  meaning 
is  to  be  taken  as  being  the  sword  which  the  Spirit 
wields,  but  it  is  the  'of  expressing  origin,  as  in  the 
'armour  of  God';  it  is  the  sword  which  the  Spirit 
supplies.  The  progress  noted  in  the  last  sermon  from 
subjective  graces  to  objective  divine  facts,  is  completed 
here,  for  the  sword  which  is  put  into  the  Christian 
soldier's  hand  is  the  gift  of  God,  even  more  markedly 
than  is  the  helmet  which  guards  his  head  in  the  day  of 
battle. 

I.  Note  what  the  word  of  God  is. 

The  answer  which  would  most  commonly  and  almost 
unthinkingly  be  given  is,  I  suppose,  the  Scriptures  ;  but 
while  this  is  on  the  whole  true,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
the  expression  employed  here  properly  means  a  word 
spoken,  and  not  the  written  record.  Both  in  the  Old 
and  in  the  New  Testaments  the  word  of  God  means 
more  than  the  Bible;  it  is  the  authentic  utterance  of 
His  will  in  all  shapes  and  applying  to  all  the  facts  of 
His  creation.  In  the  Old  Testament  '  God  said '  is  the 
expression  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  for  the  forth- 
putting  of  the  divine  energy  in  the  act  of  creation, 
and  long  ages  after  that  divine  poem  of  creation  was 
written  a  psalmist  re-echoed  the  thought  when  he  said 
'  For  ever,  O  Lord,  Thy  word  is  settled  in  the  heavens. 
Thou  hast  established  the  earth  and  it  abideth.' 

But,  further,  the  expression  designates  the  specific 
messages  which  prophets  and  others  received.  These 
are  not  in  the  Old  Testament  spoken  of  as  a  unity: 
they  are  individual  words  rather  than  a  word.  Each 
of  them  is  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  will  and 
purpose;  many  of  them  are  commandments;  some  of 
them  are  warnings;  and  all,  in  some  measure,  reveal 
the  divine  nature. 


V.17]    *THE  SWORD  OF  THE  SPIRIT'    375 

That  self-revelation  of  God  reaches  for  us  in  this 
life  its  permanent  climax,  when  He  who  'at  sundry 
times  and  in  divers  manner  spake  unto  the  fathers  by 
the  prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us  by 
a  Son.'  Jesus  is  the  personal  'word  of  God,'  though  that 
name  by  which  He  is  designated  in  the  New  Testament 
is  a  different  expression  from  that  employed  in  our 
text,  and  connotes  a  whole  series  of  different  ideas. 

The  early  Christian  teachers  and  apostles  had  no 
hesitation  in  taking  that  sacred  name — the  word  of 
the  Lord — to  describe  the  message  which  they  spoke. 
One  of  their  earliest  prayers  when  they  were  left  alone 
was,  that  wiLh  all  boldness  they  might  speak  Thy  word  ; 
and  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
the  preached  Gospel  is  designated  as  the  word  of  God, 
even  as  Peter  in  his  epistle  quotes  one  of  the  noblest  of 
the  Old  Testament  sayings,  and  declares  that  the  '  word 
of  the  Lord  '  which  '  abide th  for  ever'  is  'the  word  which 
by  the  gospel  is  preached  unto  you.' 

Clearly,  then,  Paul  here  is  exhorting  the  Ephesian 
Christians,  most  of  whom  probably  were  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  Old  Testament,  to  use  the  spoken  words 
which  they  had  heard  from  him  and  other  preachers  of 
the  Gospel  as  the  sword  of  the  Spirit.  Since  he  is 
evidently  referring  to  Christian  teaching,  it  is  obvious 
that  he  regards  the  old  and  the  new  as  one  whole,  that 
to  him  the  proclamation  of  Jesus  was  the  perfection  of 
what  had  been  spoken  by  prophets  and  psalmists.  He 
claims  for  his  message  and  his  brethren's  the  same 
place  and  dignity  that  belonged  to  the  former  mes- 
sengers of  the  divine  will.  He  asserts,  and  all  the 
more  strongly,  because  it  is  an  assertion  by  implication 
only,  that  the  same  Spirit  which  moved  in  the  prophets 
and  saints  of  former  days  is  moving  in  the  preachers 


376    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

of  the  Gospel,  and  that  their  message  has  a  wider 
sweep,  a  deeper  content,  and  a  more  radiant  light  than 
that  which  had  been  delivered  in  the  past.  The  word 
of  the  Lord  had  of  old  partially  declared  God's  nature 
and  His  will:  the  word  of  God  which  Paul  preached 
was  in  his  judgment  the  complete  revelation  of  God's 
loving  heart,  the  complete  exhibition  to  men  of  God's 
commandments  of  old  ;  longing  eyes  had  seen  a  coming 
day  and  been  glad  and  confidently  foretold  it,  now  the 
message  was  •  the  coming  one  has  come.' 

It  is  as  the  record  and  vehicle  of  that  spoken  Gospel, 
as  well  as  of  its  earlier  premonitions,  that  the  Bible 
has  come  to  be  called  the  word  of  God,  and  the  name 
is  true  in  that  He  speaks  in  this  book.  But  much  harm 
has  resulted  from  the  appropriation  of  the  name  ex- 
clusively to  the  book,  and  the  forgetfulness  that  a 
vehicle  is  one  thing  and  that  which  it  carries  quite 
another. 

II.  The  purpose  and  power  of  the  word. 

The  sword  is  the  only  offensive  weapon  in  the  list. 
The  spear  which  played  so  great  a  part  in  ancient 
warfare  is  not  named.  It  may  well  be  noted  that  only 
a  couple  of  verses  before  our  text  we  read  of  the  Gospel 
of  peace,  and  that  here  with  remarkable  freedom  of 
use  of  his  metaphors,  Paul  makes  the  w^ord  of  God, 
which  as  we  have  seen  is  substantially  equivalent  to 
the  preached  Gospel,  the  one  weapon  with  which 
Christian  men  are  to  cut  and  thrust.  Jesus  said  '  I  come 
not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword,'  but  Paul  makes  the 
apparent  contradiction  still  more  acute  when  he  makes 
the  very  Gospel  itself  the  sword.  We  may  recall  as  a 
parallel,  and  possibly  a  copy  of  our  text,  the  great 
words  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  which  speak  of  the 
word  of  God  as  '  living  and  active  and  sharper  than  any 


V.  17]    *THE  SWORD  OF  THE  SPIRIT'    377 

two-edged  sword.'  And  we  cannot  forget  the  mag- 
nificent symbolism  of  the  Book  of  Revelation  which 
saw  in  the  midst  of  the  candlestick  one  like  unto  a  Son 
of  Man,  and  '  out  of  His  mouth  proceeded  a  sharp,  two* 
edged  sword.'  That  image  is  the  poetic  embodiment 
of  our  Lord's  own  words  which  we  have  just  quoted, 
and  implies  the  penetrating  power  of  the  word  which 
Christ's  gentle  lips  have  uttered.  Gracious  and  healing 
as  it  is,  a  Gospel  of  peace,  it  has  an  edge  and  a  point 
which  cut  down  through  all  sophistications  of  human 
error,  and  lay  bare  the  '  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart.'  The  revelation  made  by  Christ  has  other  pur- 
poses which  are  not  less  important  than  its  ministering 
of  consolation  and  hope.  It  is  intended  to  help  us  in 
our  fight  with  evil,  and  the  solemn  old  utterance,  '  with 
the  breath  of  His  mouth  He  will  slay  the  wicked,'  is 
true  in  reference  to  the  effect  of  the  word  of  Christ  on 
moral  evil.  Such  slaying  is  but  the  other  side  of  the 
life-giving  power  which  the  word  exercises  on  a  heart 
subject  to  its  influence.  For  the  Christian  soldier's 
conflict  with  evil  as  threatening  the  health  of  his  own 
Christian  life,  or  as  tyrannising  over  the  lives  of  others, 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit  is  the  best  weapon. 

We  are  not  to  take  the  rough-and-ready  method, 
which  is  so  common  among  good  people,  of  identifying 
this  spirit-given  sword  with  the  Bible.  If  for  no  other 
reason,  yet  because  it  is  the  Spirit  which  supplies  it  to 
the  grasp  of  the  Christian  soldier,  our  possession  of 
it  is  therefore  a  result  of  the  action  of  that  Spirit  on 
the  individual  Christian  spirit;  and  what  He  gives,  and 
we  are  to  wield,  is  *  the  engrafted  word  which  is  able 
to  save  our  souls.'  That  word,  lodged  in  our  hearts, 
brings  to  us  a  revelation  of  duty  and  a  chart  of  life, 
because  it  brings  a  loving  recognition  of  the  character 


378    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

of  our  Fathor,  and  a  glad  obedience  to  His  will.  If 
that  word  dwell  in  us  richly,  in  all  wisdom,  and  if  we 
}o  not  dull  the  edge  of  the  sword  by  our  own  unworthy 

a,ndling  of  it,  we  shall  find  it  pierce  to  the  '  dividing 
asunder  of  joints  and  marrow,'  and  the  evil  within  us 
will  either  be  cast  out  from  us,  or  will  shrivel  itself  up, 
and  bury  itself  deep  in  dark  corners. 

Love  to  Christ  will  be  so  strong,  and  the  things  that 
are  not  seen  will  so  overwhelmingly  outweigh  the 
things  that  are  seen,  that  the  solemn  majesty  of  the 
eternal  will  make  the  temporal  look  to  our  awed  eyes 
the  contemptible  unreality  which  it  really  is.  They 
who  humbly  receive  and  faithfully  use  that  engrafted 
word,  have  in  it  a  sure  touchstone  against  which  their 
own  sins  and  errors  are  shivered.  It  is  for  the 
Christian  consciousness  the  true  Ithuriel's  spear,  at  the 
touch  of  which  'upstarts  in  his  own  shape  the  fiend' 
who  has  been  pouring  his  whispered  poison  into  an 
unsuspicious  ear.  The  standard  weights  and  measures 
are  kept  in  government  custody,  and  traders  have  to 
send  their  yard  measures  and  scales  thither  if  they 
wish  them  tested ;  but  the  engrafted  word,  faithfully 
used  and  submitted  to,  is  always  at  hand,  and  ready  to 
pronounce  its  decrees,  and  to  cut  to  the  quick  the  evil 
by  which  the  understanding  is  darkened  and  conscience 
sophisticated. 

III.  The  manner  of  its  use. 

Here  that  is  briefly  but  sufficiently  expressed  by  the 
one  commandment,  '  take,'  or  perhaps  more  accurately, 
'  receive.'  Of  course,  properly  speaking,  that  exhorta- 
tion does  not  refer  to  our  manner  of  fighting  with  the 
sword,  but  to  the  previous  act  by  which  our  hand 
grasps  it.  But  it  is  profoundly  true  that  if  we  take  it 
in  the  deepest  sense,  the  possession  of  it  will  teach  the 


V.  17]    'THE  SWORD  OF  THE  SPIRIT'    379 

use  of  it.  No  instruction  will  impart  the  last,  and  little 
instruction  is  needed  for  the  first.  What  is  needed  is 
the  simple  act  of  yielding  ourselves  to  Jesus  Christ, 
and  looking  to  Him  only,  as  our  guide  and  strength. 
Before  all  Christian  warfare  must  come  the  possession 
of  the  Christian  armour,  and  the  commandment  that 
here  lies  at  the  beginning  of  all  Paul's  description  of  it 
is  '  Take.'  Our  fitness  for  the  conflict  all  depends  on 
our  receiving  God's  gift,  and  that  reception  is  no  mere 
passive  thing,  as  if  God's  grace  could  be  poured  into  a 
human  spirit  as  water  is  into  a  bucket.  Hence,  the 
translation  of  this  commandment  of  Paul's  by  'take' 
is  better  than  that  by  *  receive,'  inasmuch  as  it  brings 
into  prominence  man's  activity,  though  it  gives  too 
exclusive  importance  to  that,  to  the  detriment  of  the 
far  deeper  and  more  essential  element  of  the  divine 
action.  The  two  words  are,  in  fact,  both  needed  to 
cover  the  whole  ground  of  what  takes  place  when  the 
giving  God  and  the  taking  man  concur  in  the  great  act 
by  which  the  Spirit  of  God  takes  up  its  abode  in  a 
human  spirit.  God's  gift  is  to  be  received  as  purely 
His  gift,  undeserved,  unearned  by  us.  But  undeserved 
and  unearned  as  it  is,  and  given  '  without  money  and 
without  price,'  it  is  not  ours  unless  our  hand  is  stretched 
out  to  take,  and  our  fingers  closed  tightly  over  the  free 
gift  of  God.  There  is  a  dead  lift  of  effort  in  the  re- 
ception; there  is  a  still  greater  effort  needed  for  the 
continued  possession,  and  there  is  a  life-long  discipline 
and  effort  needed  for  the  effective  use  in  the  struggle 
of  daily  life  of  the  sword  of  the  Spirit. 

If  that  engrafted  word  is  ever  to  become  sovereign 
in  our  lives,  there  must  be  a  life-long  attempt  to  bring 
the  tremendous  truths  as  to  God's  will  for  human  con- 
duct which  it  plants  in  our  minds  into  practice,  and  to 


380   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

bring  all  our  practice  under  their  influence.  The 
motives  which  it  brings  to  bear  on  our  evils  wiLl  be 
powerless  to  smite  them,  unless  these  motives  are  made 
sovereign  in  us  by  many  an  hour  of  patient  meditation 
and  of  submission  to  their  sweet  and  strong  constraint. 
One  sometimes  sees  on  a  wild  briar  a  graft  which  has 
been  carefully  inserted  and  bandaged  up,  but  which 
has  failed  to  strike,  and  so  the  strain  of  the  briar  goes 
on  and  no  rosebuds  come.  Are  there  not  some  of  us 
who  profess  to  have  received  the  engrafted  word  and 
whose  daily  experience  has  proved,  by  our  own  con- 
tinual sinfulness,  that  it  is  unable  to  '  save  our  souls '  ? 

There  are  in  the  Christian  ranks  some  soldiers  whose 
hands  are  too  nerveless  or  too  full  of  worldly  trash  to 
grasp  the  sword  which  they  have  received,  much  less 
to  strike  home  with  it  at  any  of  the  evils  that  are 
devastating  their  own  lives  or  darkening  the  world. 
The  feebleness  of  the  Christian  conflict  with  evil,  in  all 
its  forms,  whether  individual  or  social,  whether  in- 
tellectual or  moral,  whether  heretical  or  grossly  and 
frankly  sensual,  is  mainly  due  to  the  feebleness  with 
which  the  average  professing  Christians  grasp  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit.  When  David  asked  the  priests  for 
weapons,  and  they  told  him  that  Goliath's  sword  was 
lying  wrapt  in  a  cloth  behind  the  ephod,  and  that  they 
had  none  other ,^he  said,  '  There  is  none  like  that,  give 
it  me.'  If  we  are  wise,  we  will  take  the  sword  that  lies 
in  the  secret  place,  and,  armed  with  it,  we  shall  not 
need  to  fear  in  any  day  of  battle. 

We  do  well  that  we  take  heed  to  the  word  of  God, 
*  as  unto  a  lamp  shining  in  a  dark  place  until  the  day 
dawn,'  when  swords  will  be  no  more  needed,  and  the 
Word  will  no  longer  shine  in  darkness  but  be  the  Light 
that  makes  the  Sun  needless  for  the  brightness  of  the 
New  Jerusalem. 


PEACE,  LOVE,  AND  FAITH 

*  Peace  be  to  the  brethren,  and  love  with  faith.'— Kph.  vi.  23. 

The  numerous  personal  greetings  usually  found  at  the 
close  of  Paul's  letters  are  entirely  absent  from  this 
Epistle.  All  which  we  have  in  their  place  is  this 
entirely  general  good  wish,  and  the  still  more  general 
and  wider  one  in  the  subsequent  verse. 

There  is  but  one  other  of  the  Apostle's  letters  simi- 
larly devoid  of  personal  messages,  viz.  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians,  and  their  absence  there  is  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  the  severe  and  stern  tone  of  that 
letter.  But  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand  how  they 
should  not  appear  in  a  letter  to  a  church  with  which 
the  Apostle  had  such  prolonged  and  cordial  relations 
as  he  had  with  the  church  at  Ephesus.  And  hence  the 
absence  of  these  personal  greetings  is  a  strong  con- 
firmation of  the  opinion  that  this  Epistle  was  not 
originally  addressed  to  the  church  at  Ephesus,  but  was 
a  kind  of  circular  intended  to  go  round  the  various 
churches  in  Asia  Minor,  and  only  sent  first  to  that  at 
Ephesus.  That  opinion  is  further  confirmed  by  the 
fact  known  to  many  of  you  that  in  some  good  ancient 
manuscripts  the  words  '  at  Ephesus '  are  omitted  from 
the  first  verse  of  the  letter ;  which  thus  stands  without 
any  specific  address. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  this  tririity  of  inward  graces  is 
Paul's  highest  and  best  wisli  for  his  friends.  He  has 
no  earthly  prosperity  to  wish  for  them.  His  ambition 
soars  higher  than  that;  he  desires  for  them  peace, 
love,  faith. 

Now,  will  you  take  the  lesson  ?  There  is  no  better 
test  of  a  man  than  the  things  that  he  wishes  for  the 

881 


382   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

people  that  he  loves  most.  He  desires  for  them,  of 
course,  his  own  ideal  of  happiness.  What  do  you 
desire  most  for  those  that  are  dearest  to  you?  You 
parents,  do  you  train  up  your  children,  for  instance,  so 
as  to  secure,  or  to  do  your  best  to  secure,  not  outward 
prosperity,  but  these  loftier  gifts ;  and  for  yourselves, 
when  you  are  forming  your  wishes,  are  these  the 
things  that  you  want  most  ?  '  Set  your  affections  on 
things  above,'  and  remember  that  whoso  has  that 
trinity  of  graces,  peace,  love,  faith,  is  rich  and  blessed, 
whatsoever  else  he  has  or  needs.  And  whoso  has  them 
not  is  miserable  and  poor. 

But  I  wish  especially  to  look  a  little  more  closely  at 
these  three  things  in  themselves  and  in  their  relation 
to  one  another.  I  take  it  that  the  Apostle  is  here 
tracking  the  stream  to  its  fountain ;  that  he  is  begin- 
ning with  effects  and  working  backwards  and  down- 
wards to  causes ;  so  that  to  get  the  order  of  nature  and 
of  time  we  must  reverse  the  order  here,  and  begin 
where  he  ends  and  end  where  he  begins.  The  Christian 
life  in  its  higher  vigour  and  excellence  is  rooted  in 
faith.  That  faith  associates  to  itself,  and  is  inseparably 
connected  with  love,  and  the  faith  and  love  together 
issue  in  a  deep  restful  tranquillity  which  nothing  can 
break. 

Now  let  us  look  at  these  three  things  as  the  three 
greatest  blessings  that  any  can  bear  in  their  hearts, 
and  wring  out  of  time,  sorrow,  and  change. 

I.  First,  the  root  of  everything  is  a  continuous  and 
growing  trust. 

Remember  that  this  prayer  or  wish  of  my  text  was 
spoken  in  reference  to  brethren;  that  is  to  say,  to 
those  who,  by  the  hypothesis,  already  possessed  Chris- 
tian faith.    And  Paul  wishes  for  them,  and  can  wish 


V.  23]       PEACE,  LOVE,  AND  FAITH  383 

for  them,  nothing  better  and  more  than  the  increase 
and  continuousness  of  that  which  they  already  possess. 
The  highest  blessing  that  the  brethren  can  receive  is 
the  enlargement  and  the  strengthening  of  their  faith. 

Now  we  talk  so  much  in  Christian  teaching  about 
this  'faith'  that,  I  fancy,  like  a  worn  sixpence  in  a 
man's  pocket,  its  very  circulation  from  hand  to  hand 
has  worn  off  the  lettering.  And  many  of  us,  from  the 
very  familiarity  of  the  word,  have  only  a  dim  concep- 
tion of  what  it  means.  It  may  not  be  profitless,  then, 
to  remind  you,  first  of  all,  that  this  faith  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  very  familiar  thing  which  you 
are  constantly  exercising  in  reference  to  one  another — 
that  is  to  say,  simple  confidence.  You  trust  your  hus- 
band, your  wife,  your  child,  your  parent,  your  friend, 
your  guide,  your  lawyer,  your  doctor,  your  banker. 
Take  that  very  same  emotion  and  attitude  of  the  mind 
by  which  you  put  your  well-being,  in  different  aspects 
and  provinces,  into  the  hands  of  men  and  women  round 
about  you ;  lift  the  trailing  flowers  that  go  all  strag- 
gling along  the  ground,  and  twine  them  round  the 
pillars  of  God's  throne,  and  you  get  the  confidence,  the 
trust,  of  the  praises  and  gloines  of  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  full.  There  is  nothing  mysterious  in  it,  it  is 
simply  the  exercise  of  confidence,  the  familiar  cement 
that  binds  all  human  relationship  together,  and  makes 
men  brotherly  and  kindred  with  their  kind.  Faith  is 
trust,  and  trust  saves  a  man's  soul. 

Then,  remember  further  that  the  faith  which  is 
the  foundation  of  everything  is  essentially  personal 
trust  reposing  upon  a  person,  upon  Jesus  Christ.  You 
cannot  get  hold  of  a  man  in  any  other  way  than  by 
that.  The  only  real  bond  that  binds  people  together  is 
the  personal  bond  of  confidence,  manifesting  itself  in 


384    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

love.  And  it  is  no  mere  doctrine  that  we  present  for  a 
man's  faith,  but  it  is  the  person  about  whom  the  doc- 
trine speaks.  We  say,  indeed,  that  we  can  only  know 
the  person  on  whom  we  must  trust  by  the  revelation 
of  the  truths  concerning  Him  which  make  the  Christian 
doctrines ;  but  a  man  may  believe  the  whole  of  them, 
and  have  no  faith.  And  what  is  the  step  in  advance 
which  is  needed  in  order  to  turn  credence  into  faith — 
belief  in  a  doctrine  into  trust?  In  one  view  it  is  the 
step  from  the  doctrine  to  the  person.  When  you  grasp 
Christ,  the  living  Christ,  and  not  merely  the  doctrine, 
for  yours,  then  you  have  faith. 

Only  remember,  my  brother,  if  you  say  you  trust 
Christ,  the  question  has  immediately  to  be  asked : 
What  Christ  is  it  that  you  are  trusting?  Is  it  the 
Christ  that  died  for  your  sins  on  the  Cross,  or  is  it  a 
Christ  that  taught  you  some  great  moral  truths  and 
set  you  a  lovely  example  of  life  and  conduct?  Which 
of  the  two  is  it?  for  these  two  Christs  are  very  dif- 
ferent, and  the  faith  that  grasps  the  one  is  extremely 
unlike  the  faith  that  grasps  the  other.  And  so  I  press 
upon  you  this  question :  What  Christ  is  it  to  Whom 
your  confidence  turns,  and  for  what  is  it  that  you  are 
looking  to  Him  ?  Is  it  for  help  and  guidance  of  some 
vague  kind ;  is  it  for  pattern  or  example,  or  is  it  for 
the  salvation  of  your  sinful  souls,  by  the  might  of  His 
great  sacrifice? 

Then,  remember  still  further,  that  this  personal  out- 
going of  confidence,  which  is  the  action  both  of  a  man's 
will  and  of  a  man's  intellect,  to  the  person  revealed  to 
us  in  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Gospel — that  this  faith, 
if  it  is  to  be  worth  anything,  must  be  continuous.  Paul 
could  desire  nothing  better  for  his  Ephesian  friends 
than  that  they  should  have  that  which  they  had — faith ; 


V.  23]      PEACE,  LOVE,  AND  FAITH         385 

that  they  should  continue  to  have  it,  and  that  it  should 
be  perennial  and  increasing  all  through  their  lives. 
You  can  no  more  get  present  good  from  past  faith  than 
the  breath  you  drew  yesterday  into  your  lungs  will  be 
sufficient  to  oxygenate  your  blood  at  this  moment.  As 
soon  as  you  break  the  electric  contact,  the  electric 
light  goes  out,  and  no  matter  how  long  a  man  has 
been  living  a  life  of  faith,  that  past  life  will  not  in  the 
smallest  degree  help  him  at  the  present  moment  unless 
the  faith  is  continuous.  Remember  this,  then,  a  broken 
faith  is  a  broken  peace ;  a  broken  faith  is  a  broken 
salvation ;  and  so  long,  and  only  so  long,  as  you  are 
knit  to  Jesus  Christ  by  the  conscious  exercise  of  a 
faith  realised  at  the  moment,  are  you  in  the  reception 
of  blessing  from  Him  at  the  moment. 

And,  still  further,  this  faith  ought  to  be  progressive. 
So  Paul  desired  it  to  be  with  these  people.  If  there  is 
no  growth,  do  you  think  there  is  much  life?  I  know  I 
am  speaking  to  plenty  of  people  who  call  themselves 
Christians,  whose  faith  is  not  one  inch  better  to-day 
than  it  was  when  it  was  born — perhaps  a  little  less 
rather  than  more.  Oh !  the  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  professing  Christians,  average  Christians,  that  clog 
and  weaken  all  churches,  whose  faith  has  no  progres- 
sive element  in  it,  and  is  not  a  bit  stronger  by  all  the 
discipline  of  life  and  by  their  experience  of  its  power. 
Brethren !  is  it  so  with  us  ?  Let  us  ask  ourselves  that; 
and  let  us  ask  very  solemnly  this  other  question :  If 
my  faith  has  no  growth,  how  do  I  know  that  it  has  got 
any  life  ? 

And  so  let  me  remind  you  further  that  this  faith,  the 
personal  outgoing  of  a  man's  intellect  and  will  to  the 
personal  Saviour  revealed  in  the  Scriptures  as  the 
sacrifice  for  our  sins,  and  the  life  of  our  spirits,  which 

2b 


386    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

ought  to  be  continuoua  and  progressive,  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  strength,  blessedness,  goodness,  in  a  human 
character ;  and  if  we  have  it  we  have  the  germ  of  all 
possible  excellence  and  growth,  not  because  of  what  it 
is  in  itself,  for  in  itself  it  is  nothing  more  than  the 
opening  of  the  heart  to  the  reception  of  the  celestial 
influences  of  grace  and  righteousness  that  He  pours 
down.  And,  therefore,  this  is  the  thing  that  a  wise 
man  will  most  desire  for  himself,  and  for  those  that 
are  dearest  to  him. 

Depend  upon  it,  whether  it  is  what  we  want  most  or 
not,  it  is  what  God  wants  most  for  us.  He  does  not 
care  nearly  so  much  that  our  lives  should  be  joyful  as 
that  they  should  be  righteous  and  full  of  faith  ;  and  He 
subjects  us  to  many  a  sorrow  and  loss  and  disappoint- 
ment in  order  that  the  life  of  nature  may  be  broken 
and  the  life  of  faith  may  be  strong.  If  we  rightly 
understand  the  relative  value  of  outward  and  of  inward 
things,  we  shall  be  thankful  for  the  storms  that  drive 
us  nearer  to  Him ;  for  the  darkening  earth  that  may 
make  the  pillar  of  cloud  glow  at  the  heart  into  a 
pillar  of  fire,  and  for  all  the  discipline,  painful  though 
it  may  be,  with  which  God  answers  the  prayer,  *  Lord, 
increase  our  faith.' 

II.  And  now,  next,  notice  how  inseparably  associated 
with  a  true  faith  is  love. 

The  one  is  effect  that  never  is  found  without  its 
cause ;  the  other  is  cause  which  never  but  produces  its 
effect.  These  two  are  braided  together  by  the  Apostle 
as  inseparable  in  reality  and  inseparable  in  thought. 
And  that  it  is  so  is  plain  enough,  and  there  follow  from 
it  some  practical  lessons  that  I  desire  to  lay  upon  your 
hearts  and  my  own. 

There  are,  then,  here  two  principles,  or  rather  two 


V.23]      PEACE,  LOVE,  AND  FAITH         887 

sides  of  one  thought;  no  faith  without  love,  no  love 
without  faith. 

No  faith  is  genuine  and  deep  which  does  not  at  once 
produce  in  the  heart  where  it  is  lodged  an  answering 
love  to  God.  That  is  clear  enough.  Faith  is,  as  I  have 
said,  the  recognition  and  the  reception  of  the  divine 
love  into  the  heart;  and  we  are  so  constituted  as  that 
if  a  man  once  knows  and  believes  in  any  real  sense  the 
love  that  God  has  to  him,  he  answers  it  back  again 
with  his  love  as  certainly  as  an  echo  which  gives  back 
the  sound  that  reaches  it. 

Our  faith  is,  if  I  may  so  say,  like  a  burning-glass, 
which  concentrates  the  rays  of  the  divine  love  upon 
our  hearts,  and  focuses  them  into  a  point  that  kindles 
our  hearts  into  flame.  If  we  have  the  confidence  that 
God  loves  us,  in  any  real  depth,  we  shall  answer  by  the 
gush  of  our  love  to  Him. 

And  so  here  is  a  test  for  men's  faith.  You  call  your- 
selves Christians.  If  I  were  to  come  to  you  and  ask 
you,  *  Do  you  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ? '  most 
of  you  would  say,  '  Yes ! '  Try  your  faith,  my  friend, 
by  this  test :  Does  it  make  you  love  Him  at  all  ?  If  it 
does  not,  it  is  more  words  than  anything  else ;  and  it 
needs  a  wonderful  deepening  before  it  can  have  any 
real  power  in  your  hearts.  There  is  no  faith  worthy 
the  name  unless  its  child,  all  but  as  old  as  itself,  be 
the  answer  of  the  heart  to  Him,  pouring  itself  out  in 
thankful  gratitude. 

No  love  without  faith ;  '  we  love  Him  because  He 
first  loved  us.'  God  must  begin,  we  can  only  come 
second.  Man's  natural  selfishness  is  only  overcome  by 
the  clearest  demonstration  of  the  love  of  God  to  him ; 
and  until  tliat  love,  in  its  superbest  because  its  lowliest 
form,  the  form  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  Cross,  has  pane- 


388   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

trated  into  a  man's  heart  through  his  faith,  there  will 
be  no  love. 

So  then,  dear  friends,  there  is  a  test  for  your  love. 
We  hear  a  great  deal  said  nowadays,  as  there  has 
always  been  a  great  deal  said,  about  the  essence  of  all 
religion  consisting  in  love  to  God;  and  about  men 
'  rejecting  the  cumbrous  dogmas  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  falling  back  upon  the  great  and  simple  truths. 
Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with 
all  thy  strength ;  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,'  and 
saying  'that  is  their  religion.'  Well,  I  venture  to  say 
that  without  the  faith  of  the  heart  in,  not  the  cum- 
brous dogmas,  but  the  central  fact  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, that  Christ  died  on  the  Cross  for  me,  you  will 
never  get  the  old  commandment  of  love  to  God  with 
heart  and  soul  and  strength  and  mind  really  kept  and 
carried  out ;  and  that  if  you  want  men  to  have  their 
hearts  and  wills  bound  into  loving  fellowship  with  God, 
it  is  only  by  the  path  of  faith  in  Him  who  is  the  sacri- 
fice for  sin  that  such  fellowship  is  reached.  Hence 
there  follows  a  very  plain,  practical  advice.  Do  you 
want  your  heart's  love  to  be  increased?  Learn  the 
way  to  do  it.  You  cannot  work  yourselves  into  a 
fervour  of  religious  emotion  of  any  valuable  kind.  A 
man  cannot  get  to  love  more  by  saying,  '  I  am  deter- 
mined I  will.'  We  have  no  direct  control  over  our 
affections  in  that  fashion.  You  cannot  make  water 
boil  except  by  one  way,  and  that  is  by  putting  plenty 
of  fire  under  it ;  and  you  cannot  make  your  affections 
melt  and  flow  except  by  heating  them  by  the  contem- 
plation of  the  truth  which  is  intended  to  bring  them 
out.  That  is  to  say,  the  more  we  exercise  our  miuds 
on  the  contemplation  of  Christ's  great  love  to  us,  and 


V.23]       PEACE,  LOVE,  AND  FAITH         389 

the  more  we  put  forth  the  energies  of  our  souls  in  the 
act  of  simple  self-distrust  and  reliance  upon  Him,  the 
more  will  our  love  be  fervent  and  strong.  You  can 
only  increase  love  by  increasing  the  faith  from  which 
it  comes.  So  do  you  see  to  it,  if  you  call  yourselves 
Christians,  that  you  try  to  deepen  all  your  Christian 
affections  by  an  honest,  meditative,  prayerful  contem- 
plation and  grasp  of  the  great  love  of  God  in  Jesus 
Christ.  And  do  not  wonder  if  your  Christian  life  be, 
as  it  is  in  so  many  of  us,  stunted,  not  progressive, 
bringing  no  blessing  to  ourselves,  and  little  good  to 
anybody  else.  The  explanation  is  easy  enough.  You 
do  not  look  at  the  Cross  of  Christ,  nor  live  in  the  con- 
templation and  reception  of  His  great  grace. 

III.  And  now,  lastly,  these  two  insepara  bly  associa  ted 
graces  of  faith  and  love  bring  with  them,  and  lead  to, 
the  third — peace. 

It  seems  to  be  but  a  very  modest,  sober-tinted  wish 
which  the  Apostle  here  has  for  his  brethren  that  the 
highest  and  best  thing  he  can  ask  for  them  is  only 
quiet.  Very  modest  by  the  side  of  joy  and  excitement, 
in  their  coats  of  many  colours,  and  yet  the  deepest 
and  truest  blessing  that  any  of  us  can  have — peace.  It 
comes  to  us  by  one  path,  and  that  is  by  the  path  of 
faith  and  love. 

These  two  bring  peace  with  God,  peace  in  our  inmost 
spirits,  the  peace  of  self-annihilation  and  submission, 
the  peace  of  obedience,  the  peace  of  ceasing  from  our 
own  works,  and  entering,  therefore,  into  the  rest  of 
God.  Trust  is  peace.  There  is  no  tranquillity  like  that 
of  feeling  '  I  am  not  responsible  for  this :  He  is ;  and  I 
rest  myself  on  Him.' 

Love  is  peace.  There  is  no  rest  for  our  hearts  but  on 
the  bosom  of  some  one  that  is  dear  to  us,  and  in  whom 


390    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

we  can  confide.  But  ah,  brother !  every  tree  in  which 
the  dove  nestles  is  felled  down  sooner  or  later,  and  the 
nest  torn  to  pieces,  and  the  bird  flies  away.  But  if  we 
turn  ourselves  to  the  undying  Christ,  the  perpetual 
revelation  of  the  eternal  God,  then,  then  our  love  and 
our  faith  will  bring  us  rest.  There  will  be  peace  in 
trusting  Him  whom  we  never  can  trust  and  be  put  to 
shame.  There  will  be  peace  in  loving  Him  who  is 
more  than  worthy  of  and  able  to  repay  the  deep  and 
perennial  love  of  all  hearts. 

Self-surrender  is  peace.  It  is  our  wills  that  trouble 
us.  Disturbance  comes,  not  from  without,  but  from 
within.  When  the  will  bows,  when  I  say,  '  Be  it  then 
as  Thou  wilt,'  when  in  faith  and  love  I  cease  to  strive, 
to  murmur,  to  rebel,  to  repine,  and  enter  into  His 
loving  purposes,  then  there  is  peace. 

Obedience  is  peace.  To  recognise  a  great  will  that  is 
sovereign,  and  to  bow  myself  to  it,  not  because  it  is 
sovereign,  but  because  it  is  sweet,  and  sweet  because  I 
love  it,  and  love  Him  whose  it  is — that  is  peace.  And 
then,  whatever  may  be  outward  circumstances,  there 
shall  be  'peace  subsisting  at  the  heart  of  endless  agita- 
tion*; and  deep  in  my  soul  I  may  be  tranquil,  though 
all  about  me  may  be  the  hurly-burly  of  the  storm. 

The  Christian  peace  is  an  armed  peace,  paradoxical 
as  it  appears  ;  and  according  to  the  great  word  of  the 
Apostle,  is  a  sentry  which  garrisons  the  beleaguered 
heart  and  mind,  surrounded  by  many  foes,  and  keeps 
them  in  Christ  Jesus. 

'There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  to  the  wicked,' 
he  is  'as  a  troubled  sea  which  cannot  rest,  whose 
waters  cast  up  mire  and  dirt ' ;  but  over  the  wildest 
commotion  one  Yoice,  low^,  gentle,  omnipotent,  says: 
'  Peace  1  be  still ! '  and  the  heart  quiets  itself,  though 


T.23]  GOD'S  GRACE  891 

there  may  be  a  ground  swell,  and  the  weather  clears. 
He  is  your  peace,  trust  Him,  love  Him,  and  you  cannot 
but  possess  the  'peace  of  God  which  passeth  under- 
standing.* 


THE  WIDE  RANGE  OF  GOD'S  GRACE 

•Grace  bo  with  all  them  that  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity.' 

Ephes.  vi.  21. 

In  turning  to  the  great  words  which  I  have  read  as 
a  text,  I  ask  you  to  mark  their  width  and  their 
simplicity.  They  are  wide  ;  they  follow  a  very  compre- 
hensive benediction,  with  which,  so  to  speak,  they  are 
concentric.  But  they  sweep  a  wider  circle.  The  former 
verse  says,  '  Peace  be  to  the  brethren.'  But  beyond 
the  brethren  in  these  Asiatic  churches  (as  a  kind  of 
circular  letter  to  whom  this  epistle  was  probably  sent) 
there  rises  before  the  mind  of  the  Apostle  a  great 
multitude,  in  every  nation,  and  they  share  in  his  love, 
and  in  the  promise  and  the  prayer  of  my  text.  Mark 
its  simplicity  everything  is  brought  down  to  its  most 
general  expression.  All  the  qualifications  for  receiving 
the  divine  gift  are  gathered  up  in  one — love.  All  the 
variety  of  the  divine  gifts  is  summed  up  in  that  one 
comprehensive  expression — '  grace.' 

I.  So  then,  note,  first,  the  comprehensive  designation 
of  the  recipients  of  grace. 

They  are  •  all  who  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in 
incorruption.'  Little  need  be  said  explanatory  of  the 
force  of  this  general  expression.  Wo  usually  find  that 
where  Scripture  reduces  the  whole  qualification  for 
the  reception  of  the  divine  gift,  and  the  conditions 
which  unite  to  Jesus  Christ,  to  one,  it  is  faith,  not  love, 
that  is  chosen.  But  here  the  Apostle  takes  the  process 
at  the  second  stage,  and  instead  of  emphasising  the 


392   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

faith  which  is  the  first  step,  he  dwells  upon  the  love 
which  is  its  uniforin  consequence.  This  love  rests  upon 
the  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

Then  note  the  solemn  fulness  of  the  designations  of 
the  object  of  this  faith-born  love.  *  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord' — the  name  of  His  humanity;  the  name  of  His 
office;  the  designation  of  His  dominion.  He  is  Jesus 
the  Man.  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Fulfiller  of  all 
prophecy ;  the  flower  of  all  previous  revelation ;  the 
Anointed  of  God  with  the  fulness  of  His  Divine  Spirit 
as  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King.  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Lord — which,  at  the  lowest,  expresses  sovereignty,  and 
if  regard  be  had  to  the  Apostolic  usage,  expresses 
something  more,  even  participation  in  Deity.  And  it 
is  this  whole  Christ,  the  Jesus,  the  Christ,  the  Lord ; 
the  love  to  whom,  built  upon  the  faith  in  Him  in  all 
these  aspects  and  characteristics,  constitutes  the  true 
unity  of  the  true  Church. 

That  Church  is  not  built  upon  a  creed,  but  it  is  built 
upon  a  whole  Christ,  and  not  a  maimed  one.  And  so 
we  must  have  a  love  which  answers  to  all  those  sides 
of  that  great  revealed  character,  and  is  warm  with 
human  love  to  Jesus;  and  is  trustful  with  confiding 
love  to  the  Christ ;  and  is  lowly  with  obedient  love  to 
the  Lord.  And  I  venture  to  go  a  step  further,  and  say, 
— and  is  devout  with  adoring  love  to  the  eternal  Son 
of  the  Father.  This  is  the  Apostle's  definition  of  what 
makes  a  Christian :  Faith  that  grasps  the  whole  Christ 
and  love  that  therefore  flows  to  Him.  It  binds  all  who 
possess  it  into  one  great  unity.  As  against  a  spurious 
liberalism  which  calls  them  Christians  who  lay  hold  of 
a  fragment  of  the  one  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite, 
we  must  insist  that  a  Christian  is  one  who  knows 
Jesus,  who  knows  Christ,  who  knows  the  Lord,  and 


<r.24]  GOD'S  GRACE  393 

who  loves  Him  in  all  these  aspects.  Only  we  must 
remember,  too,  that  many  a  time  a  man's  heart  outruns 
liis  creed,  and  that  many  a  sovil  glows  with  truer, 
deeper,  more  saving  devotion  and  trust  to  a  Christ 
whom  the  intellect  imperfectly  apprehends,  than  are 
realised  by  unloving  hearts  that  are  associated  with 
clearer  heads.  Orchids  grow  in  rich  men's  greenhouses, 
fastened  to  a  bit  of  stick,  and  they  spread  a  fairer 
blossom  that  lasts  longer  than  many  a  plant  that  is 
rooted  in  a  more  fertile  soil.  Let  us  be  thankful  for 
the  blessed  inconsistencies  which  knit  some  to  the 
Christ  who  is  more  to  them  than  they  know. 

There  is  also  here  laid  down  for  us  the  great 
principle,  as  against  all  narrowness  and  all  externalism, 
and  all  so-called  ecclesiasticism,  that  to  be  joined  to 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  one  condition  which  brings  a  man 
into  the  blessed  unity  of  the  Church.  Now  it  seems  to 
me  that,  however  they  may  be  to  be  lamented  on  other 
grounds,  and  they  are  to  be  lamented  on  many,  the 
existence  of  diverse  Churches  does  not  necessarily  in- 
terfere with  this  deep-seated  and  central  unity.  There 
is  a  great  deal  said  to-day  about  the  reunion  of 
Christendom,  by  which  is  meant  the  destruction  of 
existing  communions  and  the  formation  of  a  wider  one. 
I  do  not  believe,  and  I  suppose  you  do  not,  that  our 
existing  ecclesiastical  organisations  are  the  final  form 
of  the  Church  of  the  living  God.  But  let  us  remember 
that  the  two  things  are  by  no  means  contradictory, 
the  belief  in,  and  the  realising  of,  the  essential  unity 
of  the  Church,  and  the  existence  of  diverse  com- 
munions. You  will  see  on  the  side  of  many  a  Cumber- 
land hill  a  great  stretch  of  limestone  with  clefts  a  foot 
or  two  deep  in  it— there  are  flowers  in  the  clefts,  by 
the  bye — but  go  down  a  couple  of    yards    and  the 


394    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

divisions  have  all  disappeared,  and  the  base-rock 
stretches  continuously.  The  separations  are  super- 
ficial; the  unity  is  fundamental.  Do  not  let  us  play 
into  the  hands  of  people  whose  only  notion  of  unity  is 
that  of  a  mechanical  juxtaposition  held  together  by 
some  formula  or  orders ;  but  let  us  recognise  that  the 
true  unity  is  in  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
midst,  and  in  the  common  grasp  of  Him  by  us  all. 

There  is  a  well-known  hymn  which  was  originally 
intended  as  a  High  Church  manifesto,  which  thrusts 
at  us  Nonconformists  when  it  sings  : 

'  We  are  not  divided, 
All  one  body  we.' 

And  oddly  enough,  but  significantly  too,  it  has  found 
its  way  into  all  our  Nonconformist  hymn-books,  and  we, 
'the  sects,'  are  singing  it,  with  perhaps  a  nobler  con- 
ception of  what  the  oneness  of  the  body,  and  the  unity 
of  the  Church  is,  than  the  writer  of  the  words  had. 
'We  are  not  divided,'  though  we  be  organised  apart. 
'  All  one  body  we,'  for  we  all  partake  of  that  one  bread, 
and  the  unifying  principle  is  a  common  love  to  the  one 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

II.  Mark  the  impartial  sweep  of  the  divine  gifts. 

My  text  is  a  benediction,  or  a  prayer ;  but  it  is  also  a 
prophecy,  or  a  statement,  of  the  inevitable  and  uniform 
results  of  love  to  Jesus  Christ.  The  grace  will  follow 
that  love,  necessarily  and  certainly,  and  the  lovers  will 
get  the  gift  of  God  because  their  love  has  brought  them 
into  living  contact  with  Jesus  Christ ;  and  His  life  will 
flow  over  into  theirs.  I  need  not  remind  you  that  the 
word  '  grace '  in  Scripture  means,  first  of  all,  the  con- 
descending love  of  God  to  inferiors,  to  sinners,  to  those 
who  deserved  something  else  ;  and,  secondly,  the  whole 
fulness  of  blessing  and  gift  that  follow  upon  that  love. 


V.24]  GOD'S  GRACE  395 

And,  says  Paul,  these  great  gifts  from  Leaven,  the  one 
gift  in  which  all  are  comprised,  will  surely  follow  the 
opening  of  the  heart  in  love  to  Jesus  Christ. 

Ah,  brethren  !  God's  grace  makes  uncommonly  short 
work  of  ecclesiastical  distinctions.  The  great  river 
flows  through  territories  that  upon  men's  maps  are 
painted  in  different  colours,  and  of  which  the  inhabi- 
tants speak  in  different  tongues.  The  Rhine  laves  the 
pine-trees  of  Switzerland,  and  the  vines  of  Germany, 
and  the  willows  of  Holland ;  and  God's  grace  flows 
through  all  places  where  the  men  that  love  Him  do 
dwell.  It  rises,  as  it  were,  right  over  the  barriers  that 
they  have  built  between  each  other.  The  little  pools 
on  the  sea-shore  are  separate  when  the  tide  is  out,  but 
when  it  comes  up  it  fills  all  the  pot-holes  that  the 
pebbles  have  made,  and  unifies  them  in  one  great  flash- 
ing, dancing  mass;  and  so  God's  grace  comes  to  all 
that  love  Him,  and  confirms  their  unity. 

Surely  that  is  the  true  test  of  a  living  Church. 
*  When  Barnabas  came,  and  saw  the  grace  of  God,  he 
was  glad.'  It  was  not  what  he  had  expected,  but  he 
was  open  to  conviction.  The  Church  where  he  saw  it 
had  been  very  irregularly  constituted  ;  it  had  no  orders 
and  no  sacraments,  and  had  been  set  a-going  by  the 
spontaneous  efforts  of  private  Christians,  and  he  came 
to  look  into  the  facts.  He  asked  for  nothing  more 
when  he  saw  that  the  converts  had  the  life  within 
them.  And  so  we,  with  all  our  faults — and  God  forbid 
that  I  should  seem  to  minimise  these — with  all  our 
faults,  we  poor  Nonconformists,  left  to  the  un- 
covenanted  mercies,  have  our  share  of  that  gift  of 
grace  as  truly,  and,  if  our  love  be  deeper,  more 
abundantly,  than  the  Churches  that  are  blessed  with 
orders  and  sacraments,  and  an  '  unbroken  historical 


396    EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.  vi. 

continuity.'  And  when  we  are  unchurched  for  our 
lack  of  these,  let  us  fall  back  upon  St.  Augustine's 
•  Where  Christ  is,  there  the  Church  is ' ;  and  believe 
that  to  us,  even  to  us  also,  the  promise  is  fulfilled,  '  Lo ! 
I  am  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world.* 

III.  Lastly,  note  the  width  to  which  our  sympathies 
should  go. 

The  Apostle  sends  out  his  desires  and  prayers  so  as 
to  encircle  the  same  area  as  the  grace  of  God  covers  and 
as  His  love  enfolds.    And  we  are  bound  to  do  the  same. 

I  am  not  going  to  talk  about  organic  unity.  The 
age  for  making  new  denominations  is,  I  suppose,  about 
over.  I  do  not  think  that  any  sane  man  would  con- 
template starting  a  new  Church  nowadays.  The 
rebound  from  the  iron  rigidity  of  a  mechanical  unity 
that  took  place  at  the  Reformation  naturally  led  to  the 
multiplication  of  communities,  each  of  which  laid  hold 
of  something  that  to  it  seemed  important.  The  folly 
of  ecclesiastical  rulers  who  insisted  upon  non-essentials 
lays  the  guilt  of  the  schism  at  their  doors,  and  not  at 
the  doors  of  the  minority  who  could  not,  in  conscience, 
accept  that  which  never  should  have  been  insisted 
upon  as  a  condition.  But  whilst  we  must  all  feel  that 
power  is  lost,  and  much  evil  ensues  from  the  isolation, 
such  as  it  is,  of  the  various  Churches,  yet  we  must 
remember  that  re-union  is  a  slow  process ;  that  an 
atmosphere  springs  up  round  each  body  which  is  a  very 
subtle,  but  none  the  less  a  very  powerful,  force,  and 
that  it  will  take  a  very,  very  long  time  to  overcome 
the  difficulties  and  to  bring  about  any  reconstruction 
on  a  large  scale.  But  why  should  there  be  three 
Presbyterian  Churches  in  Scotland,  with  the  same 
creed,  confessions  of  faith,  and  ecclesiastical  constitu- 
tion?    Why  should  there  be  half  a  dozen  Methodist 


V.24]  GOD'S  GRACE  397 

bodies  in  England,  of  whom  substantially  the  same 
thing  may  be  said  ?  Will  it  ahvays  pass  the  wit  of 
man  for  Congregationalists  and  Baptists  to  be  one  body, 
without  the  sacrifice  of  conviction  upon  either  side? 
Surely  no !  You  young  men  may  see  these  fair  days  ; 
men  like  me  can  only  hope  that  they  will  come  and  do  a 
little,  such  as  may  be  possible  in  a  brief  space,  to  help 
them  on. 

Putting  aside,  then,  all  these  larger  questions,  I  want, 
in  a  sentence  or  two,  to  insist  with  you  upon  the  duty 
that  lies  on  us  all,  and  which  every  one  of  us  may  bear 
a  share  in  discharging.  There  ought  to  be  a  far  deeper 
consciousness  of  our  fundamental  unity.  They  talk  a 
great  deal  about  'the  rivalries  of  jarring  sects.'  I 
believe  that  is  such  an  enormous  exaggeration  that  it 
is  an  untruth.  There  is  rivalry,  but  you  know  as  well 
as  I  do  that,  shabby  and  shameful  as  it  is,  it  is  a  kind  of 
commercial  rivalry  between  contiguous  places  of  wor- 
ship, be  they  chapels  or  churches,  be  they  buildings 
belonging  to  the  same  or  to  different  denominations. 
I,  for  my  part,  after  a  pretty  long  experience  now, 
have  seen  so  little  of  that  said  bitter  rivalry  between 
the  Nonconformist  sects,  as  sects,  that  to  me  it  is  all  but 
non-existent.  And  I  believe  the  most  of  us  ministers, 
going  about  amongst  the  vai^ious  communities,  could 
say  the  same  thing.  But  in  the  face  of  a  cultivated 
England  laughing  at  your  creed  of  Jesus,  the  Christ, 
the  Lord ;  and  in  the  face  of  a  strange  and  puerile 
recrudescence  of  sacerdotalism  and  sacramentarianism, 
which  shoves  a  priest  and  a  rite  into  the  place  where 
Christ  should  stand,  it  becomes  us  Nonconformists  who 
believe  that  we  know  a  more  excellent  way  to  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  show  that  the  unities  that 
bind  us  are  far  more  than  the  diversities  that  separate. 


398   EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS  [ch.vi. 

It  becomes  us,  too,  to  further  conjoint  action  in  social 
matters.  Thank  God  we  are  beginning  to  stir  in  that 
direction  in  Manchester — not  before  it  was  time.  And 
I  beseech  you  professing  Christians,  of  all  Evangelical 
communions,  to  help  in  bringing  Christian  motives 
and  principles  to  bear  on  the  discussion  of  social  and 
municipal  and  economical  conditions  in  this  great  city 
of  ours. 

And  there  surely  ought  to  be  more  concert  than  we 
have  had  in  aggressive  work;  that  we  should  a  little 
more  take  account  of  each  other's  action  in  regulating 
our  own ;  and  that  we  should  not  have  the  scandal, 
which  we  too  often  have  allowed  to  exist,  of  over- 
lapping one  another  in  such  a  fashion  as  that  rivalry 
and  mere  trade  competition  is  almost  inevitable. 

These  are  very  humble,  prosaic  suggestions,  but  they 
would  go  a  long  way,  if  they  were  observed,  to  sweeten 
our  own  tempers,  and  to  make  visible  to  the  world 
our  true  unity.  Let  us  all  seek  to  w^iden  our  sym- 
pathies as  widely  as  Christ's  grace  flows;  to  count 
none  strangers  whom  He  counts  friends  ;  to  discipline 
ourselves  to  feel  that  we  are  girded  with  that  electric 
chain  which  makes  all  who  grasp  it  one,  and  sends  the 
same  keen  thrill  through  them  all.  If  a  circle  were  a 
mile  in  diameter,  and  its  circumference  were  dotted 
with  many  separate  points,  how  much  nearer  each  of 
these  would  be  if  it  were  moved  inwards,  on  a  straight 
line,  closer  to  the  centre,  so  as  to  make  a  circle  a  foot 
across.  The  nearer  we  come  to  the  One  Lord,  in  love, 
communion,  and  likeness,  the  nearer  shall  we  be  to 
one  another. 


DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD 


PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 


